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Olly 🎾🇬🇧

@Olly_Tennis_

Sep 23 • 6 tweets • 3 min read Twitter logo

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THREAD 🧵

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY, a sporting legend, Roger Federer, retires.

In fitting fashion, the Swiss legend chooses his biggest rival, Rafael Nadal, to play alongside him in a doubles match, to conclude his career.

Rafa was one of the very first people Roger told of his plans to retire, right after his family and team. 🥹

While Roger and Rafa were both far from their best, with the former having the knee issues which caused him to retire, and the latter with abdominal issues that had plagued him for a few months, they still produced some magic, one last time.

Federer even hit the ball BETWEEN the net post and the net (somehow?!).

This led to some fans trying to RECREATE this unorthodox piece of magic, including this guy (whose name I can’t remember, but I’ll credit him if someone has his @)

HILARIOUS.

Unfortunately, Federer and Nadal lost.

I’ll always remember that feeling when Team World made the pass on match point, marking the end of Roger’s career. Heartbreaking.

His speech was no less emotional.

As soon as he mentions Mirka, he bursts into tears 🥹

This photo by @EllaLing23 won Sony's ‘ITPA Photo of the Year award’.

Not just Nadal and Federer somewhat uncontrollably crying, but the slightly younger Djokovic also feeling the moment.

A day I’ll never forget.

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Olly 🎾🇬🇧

@Olly_Tennis_

Aug 19

🧵THREAD: The ULTIMATE lesson of never giving up, going beyond the pain barrier, pushing when your body says stop, by Rafael Nadal, at the 2009 Australian Open:

“[During the semi-final] In the very last game, just before the very last point, my eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t crying because I sensed defeat, or even victory, but as a response to the sheer excruciating tension of it all. I had lost the fourth set on a tie break, and that, in a game so tense and in such conditions, would have been devastating had I not been able to call on every last reserve of mental strength I’d accumulated over fifteen years of relentless competition. I was able to put that blow behind me and begin the fifth believing I still had it in me to win.

The chance finally arrived with me 5–4 and 0–40 up on Verdasco’s serve. That should have been it, with three match points, but it wasn’t quite. I lost both the first and the second points. That was when it all got too much for me and I broke down; that was where the armor plating fell away and the warrior Rafa Nadal, who tennis fans think they know, lay revealed as the vulnerable, human Rafael. The one person who didn’t see it was Verdasco. Either that or he was in even worse shape than I was. Because his nerves got the better of him too. In a moment of incredible good luck for me (and terrible luck for him), he double faulted, handing me victory without me having to hit a shot. Both of us fell flat on our backs, ready to expire of physical and nervous exhaustion, but it was me who made it up first, stumbling forward and stepping over the net to embrace Fernando and tell him it was a match neither of us had deserved to lose. Toni, who had not failed to notice the quivering wreck I’d been reduced to in the final game, remarked later that had Verdasco not double faulted, the semifinal would probably have been his. I tend to agree.”

He was into the final against Roger Federer, after a 5 hour 14 minutes marathon semi-final. (1/4)

“I went to sleep that night in the grimmest of moods and woke up the next morning feeling only marginally less stiff. When I went out on the practice court for my last training session at five in the afternoon, two and a half hours before the match was due to start, I hardly felt any better. Again, I felt dizzy; again, my leg muscles felt heavy and hard— so much so that I suddenly had an attack of cramps in one of my calves. Toni was there, and after half an hour struggling to get some rhythm going, I told him I couldn’t go on. I must have looked terrible because he said, “OK. Stop. Let’s go back to the locker room.” ‘And there it was that Toni rose to the occasion’. (2/4)

“Look,” he said, “it’s 5:30pm now, and when you go on court at 7:30pm I assure you that you won’t be feeling any better. You’ll probably be feeling worse. So it’s up to you whether you rise above the pain and the exhaustion and summon up the desire you need to win.” I replied, “Toni, I’m sorry. I can’t see it. I just can’t.”

“Don’t say you can’t,” he said. “Because anybody who digs deep enough can always find the motivation they need for anything. In war, people do things that appear to be impossible.

Just imagine if there were a guy sitting behind you in the stadium pointing a gun at you, telling you that if you didn’t run, and keep running, he’d shoot you. I bet you’d run then. So, come on! It’s up to you to find the motivation to win. This is your big chance.

Bad as you might be feeling now, it’s likely that you’ll never have as good a chance of winning the Australian Open as you do today. And even if there’s only a one percent chance of you winning this match, well, then, you have to squeeze every last drop out of that one percent.

At every changeover repeat it to yourself, because, you know what? The truth is you can do it. What you can never allow is to fail because of a loss of will. You can lose because your rival played better, but you can’t lose because you failed to give it your best. That would be a crime.

But you won’t do that, I know it. Because you always do give your best and today will be no exception.” 👏(3/4)

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