‘An important part of my life is leaving too,’ says emotional Rafael Nadal. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty Images
“I had an agreement with my wife for about a year, we weren’t getting on but she felt she couldn’t really ask me to leave and it had lasted two years.
“So I told her I could not do it anymore, I had no choice. Then she said ‘I think we should call a truce’. She went to Spain, she came back with good news. She was in talks with the president of the Spanish tennis federation and the Spanish federation, and I was going to Spain.
“I spent two weeks training – you can’t have a bad vacation in Spain – I had to leave the next day, and I took a week off to go to Germany. Then the last few days, I only had three days off, and I was in a good mood, I was happy.
“I was very happy to be part of the Spanish teams and to be in Spain, but I also knew I was going away. I needed a vacation.”
It was on that August evening that Nadal’s world crumbled. Spain’s Nadal, world No 4 at the previous year’s US Open, was now ranked No 3 in the world. He had been a top 100 singles tennis player since the age of 14 and had become a seven-time Grand Slam champion, winning the US Open in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017. Now he was down to No 3.
“My career was good for the rest of my life and I liked it,” he says. “But we had the biggest match of my career in the last four years against Novak Djokovic, who was always a great friend of mine. I’m sure my career is not at risk at all now, but being No 3, people are going to be more critical.
“I didn’t feel like I played well at the end of 2017. I’m not a great loser, but I wasn’t playing well. I was not in a great spirits and you feel so isolated sometimes.