Nadal’s last match at Roland Garros, 30,000 points and 25 million euros later

Next Sunday he will play (and lose) against Zverev, in the first round. And he will say goodbye to his Parisian "home".

ROME – “Ooooooo”, the hall of “L’Orangerie” roared when Marie-José Pérec extracted Zverev from the urn. The fittest player of the moment. He will be Rafa Nadal’s executioner, at his home. So now we know, with good approximation, what the Spanish legend’s last match on clay will be, in the tournament that alone would have guaranteed him an unforgettable career: Roland Garros. We also have a date: Sunday 26 May. The “cursed” draw is a pre-mourning guarantee: the chances that Nadal, in the barely acceptable conditions he is in, can beat the German in a best of 5 sets are around zero point. Accidents or other accidents excluded.

And so everyone, from now on, can compose their own epitaph. For now, reserving lyricism and superstition, the numbers are enough to mark the scope of the event. Nadal has accumulated a total of 25,004,250 euros in the Parisian Slam since 2005. The 14 titles translated into scores mean 29,350 points scored. He played 115 matches, won 112: two defeats against Djokovic, in the quarter-finals of 2015 and in the semi-finals in 2021, and one – iconic – against Robin Söderling in the round of 16 of the 2009 edition. Nadal was on the courts of the Bois de Boulogne for 277 hours and 53 minutes, which is equivalent to 11 days and 13 hours of tennis. He only has one last match left. Unless Zverev decides to further fuel the legend.

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