Roberto Bautista retires, the fighter who moved tennis and was respected by all

Tennis continues to turn the page and an era is coming to a close. Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka (41) is leaving, accompanied by Frenchman Gael Monfils (39), and another special farewell will join these illustrious departures, that of Roberto Bautista. Two days after celebrating his 38th birthday, the Spanish tennis player announces that this will be his last season. Against his will, of course. Few or none manage to overcome the wear and tear of the elite, and if it were up to him, he would have competed indefinitely. He loves what he does too much. “Getting up every day to go train and continuing to acquire knowledge to keep improving is like a poison,” he summarized two years ago at Wimbledon. But even that, the poison, eventually runs out. Well surrounded, he now says goodbye.

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Always simple, always discreet. Without noise. From that sober plane he likes. And very grateful. “I have lived my dream for many years. I have given everything I had inside in every training and every match. Now I feel the time has come to start saying goodbye, to enjoy each tournament in a different way and to close this stage with gratitude towards my beloved tennis,” he conveys in the message, the three brief audios that arrive this Thursday in journalists’ inboxes. Novak Djokovic will breathe easier, still stretching the rope. “He is very underrated. He is very consistent, very intelligent, and never loses control,” said the Serbian in July 2019, after the most important individual passage of the Spaniard.

That day, Bautista squeezed the greatest male champion of all time in the Wimbledon semifinals. In rhythm, Roger Federer defined him as a “tough guy” and stated that he felt great respect for him, winner of 12 trophies — ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2014, the first, and Antwerp 2024 the last — after 21 seasons as a professional. It happens that injuries had been common lately and despite the extreme care of that chassis (not a gram of fat), joints and muscles raise the white flag: this far, which is no small feat. He, Murray school. Pure hard work and passion. “He has been my example, the player I have looked up to a lot,” he commented to this newspaper coinciding with the Scot’s farewell.

Bautista will leave as a recognized and also feared tennis player, tough in almost all circumstances. Hard-headed and with magnificent shots, forehand and backhand; his presence in the draw usually represented a trap, or at least, a bad time. Thorny. He reached ninth in the world and the 2019 Davis Cup will remain in the imagination. Then, Rafael Nadal scored eight points for the Spanish team, but the memory is accompanied by the surnames Bautista Agut. Father and mother, Joaquín and Ester. From one misfortune to another. The emotional atmosphere of those days multiplied by a hundred and Spain reached the seventh and so far last Ensaladera. “What Rober does is from another planet,” said that triumphant Nadal. “It is one of the most incredible things I have seen in an athlete,” added then captain Sergi Bruguera.

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He came close to a Masters 1000 — defeated in 2016 by Murray in the Shanghai final — and distinguished himself as a classic-style tennis player, prototypical rallying of the Spanish academy, and at the same time modern: hard court as a comfort zone. Legs to give and share — he was a youth player at Villarreal — and shots with intention, cunning, few freebies. A true competitor. Always fighting. “You have to win every point against him,” praises Toni Nadal. He hasn’t given away a single one. However, strength runs out and setbacks do not allow him to reach that essential rhythm to keep competing; only eleven matches this year and without good feeling, now dropped out. So he will leave at the end of this year, satisfied and devoted to his wife and two children, also to his horses. A bad fall cost him a fibula fracture.

“I want to live every last point this year. Feel the support of the people, compete once more in the tournaments that have been part of my life and say goodbye on the court, where I have always been happiest,” he communicates; “thanks to my family, my team, my friends, my sponsors and to all who have been there during these years. And thank you, from the heart, to all the fans who have accompanied me at every moment.” A man of few words and a penetrating fixed gaze, he will leave with all honors. Bautista, proud example of the earthbound.

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