Rafael Nadal an­nounced his im­pend­ing re­tire­ment from ten­nis on Thurs­day at age 38 af­ter win­ning 22 Grand Slam sin­gles ti­tles dur­ing an un­prece­dent­ed era he shared with his ri­vals in the so-called Big Three, Roger Fed­er­er and No­vak Djokovic.

Nadal said he will re­tire af­ter next month’s Davis Cup fi­nals.

“Re­al­ly, every­thing I have ex­pe­ri­enced has been a dream come true,” Nadal said in an an­nounce­ment on so­cial me­dia. “I leave with the ab­solute peace of mind of hav­ing giv­en my best, of hav­ing made an ef­fort in every way”

The Spaniard in­di­cat­ed his de­ci­sion was re­lat­ed to per­sis­tent in­jury prob­lems.

“The re­al­i­ty is that it has been some dif­fi­cult years, these last two es­pe­cial­ly. I don’t think I have been able to play with­out lim­i­ta­tions. It is ob­vi­ous­ly a dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion, one that has tak­en me some time to make. But in this life, every­thing has a be­gin­ning and an end,” Nadal said.

Nadal’s un­re­lent­ing, phys­i­cal style of play — every point pur­sued as though it were his last, sprint­ing and slid­ing in­to place for that high-bounc­ing bull­whip of a lefty fore­hand — made him one of the greats of the game and the un­ques­tioned King of Clay, the slow, red sur­face on which he claimed his record 14 French Open cham­pi­onships.

That’s more than any­one, man or woman, won at any one of the sport’s four ma­jor tour­na­ments, a dom­i­nance cel­e­brat­ed by a stat­ue of Nadal that stands near the main en­trance to the grounds of Roland Gar­ros and in the shad­ow of its main sta­di­um, Court Philippe Cha­tri­er.

Nadal al­so won four tro­phies at the U.S. Open and two apiece at Wim­ble­don and the Aus­tralian Open, giv­ing him a ca­reer Grand Slam. His last pair ar­rived in 2022, at Mel­bourne in Jan­u­ary and at Paris in June, push­ing him ahead of Fed­er­er for the men’s record of 20 Grand Slam ti­tles. Fed­er­er an­nounced his re­tire­ment when he was 41 the end of the 2022 sea­son, short­ly be­fore bid­ding adieu by team­ing with Nadal in a dou­bles match at the Laver Cup.

Nadal’s un­re­lent­ing, phys­i­cal style of play — every point pur­sued as though it were his last, sprint­ing and slid­ing in­to place for that high-bounc­ing bull­whip of a lefty fore­hand — made him one of the greats of the game and the un­ques­tioned King of Clay, the slow, red sur­face on which he claimed his record 14 French Open cham­pi­onships.

Both have since been sur­passed by Djokovic, who is up to 24.

“I want to thank the en­tire ten­nis in­dus­try, all the peo­ple in­volved in this sport, my long-time col­leagues, es­pe­cial­ly my great ri­vals,” Nadal said over im­ages of him play­ing against Fed­er­er and Djokovic. “I have spent many hours with them and I have lived many mo­ments that I will re­mem­ber for the rest of my life.”

So much of Nadal’s suc­cess was seen, fair­ly or not, through the prism of his en­coun­ters with Fed­er­er and Djokovic. The ten­nis world, and plen­ty out­side of it, were con­sumed with the de­bate over which was most de­serv­ing of the “GOAT” — “Great­est Of All-Time” — moniker.

The world, ten­nis or oth­er­wise, was fas­ci­nat­ed by their matchups, their dif­fer­ing styles and per­son­al­i­ties. Who among those who wit­nessed it could pos­si­bly for­get Nadal vs. Fed­er­er in the 2008 Wim­ble­don fi­nal? Or Nadal vs. Djokovic in the 2022 French Open quar­ter­fi­nals? Or Nadal vs. Djokovic in the 2012 Aus­tralian Open fi­nal? And so on.

Nadal added Thurs­day that he was ex­cit­ed to fin­ish his ca­reer at the Davis Cup, which will be played in Mala­ga, Spain.

“I am very ex­cit­ed that my last tour­na­ment will be the fi­nal of the Davis Cup and rep­re­sent­ing my coun­try,” he said. “I think I’ve come full cir­cle since one of my first great joys as a pro­fes­sion­al ten­nis play­er was the Davis Cup fi­nal in Seville in 2004.”

Nadal has not played since the Paris Olympics, where he lost to old ri­val Djokovic in the sec­ond round of the sin­gles tour­na­ment and reached the quar­ter­fi­nals of the men’s dou­bles with Car­los Al­caraz.

“I think it is the ap­pro­pri­ate time to put an end to a ca­reer that has been long and much more suc­cess­ful than I could have ever imag­ined,” he said.