Rafael Nadal ended his stratospheric tennis career on Tuesday night after Spain lost their Davis Cup quarter-final tie against the Netherlands in Malaga, southern Spain.

Nadal, 38, went down in straight sets to Botic van de Zandschulp in the opening match at the José María Martín Carpena Arena before Carlos Alcaraz levelled proceedings with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Talon Griekspoor.

However, Van de Zandschulp and Wesley Koolhof – also bidding farewell to the ATP circuit – combined to see off Alcaraz and Marcel Granollers 7-6, 7-6.

“I tried my best. I tried to enjoy and play with the right energy and the right attitude,” said Nadal after his defeat to the world number 80.

“It just didn’t work. There was a possibility that that would happen.”

Nadal last played competitively at the Paris Olympics in August. He lost in the second round of the singles and then later in the quarter-finals of the doubles.

“I knew it could be my last match as a professional and the emotions were difficult to manage,” Nadal admitted.

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“I wasn’t able to read the game quickly enough to feel in control. When you’ve spent so much time out of competition, everything is decided by small details and I’m not in the same form as players who are on the circuit. Today won’t be the day for me to criticise myself.”

During 23 years on the ATP circuit, Nadal was dubbed “the king of clay” for an 81-match unbeaten streak that started at the Monte Carlo Masters in April 2005 and ended at the Hamburg Masters in May 2007.

Roger Federer terminated the sequence but Nadal gained revenge the following month at the French Open in Paris where he became only the second man since tennis was opened to professional players in 1968 to win three championships on the trot.

In the 2008 final, Nadal annihilated Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 to brandish his fourth title at the only Grand Slam event to be played on clay courts.

HONOUR

By 2021, Nadal was guest of honour at the unveiling of his statue at the Stade Roland Garros to hail his 13 crowns.

A 14th followed in 2022 when he swept past Casper Ruud in straight sets.

Nadal also claimed eight titles at the three other Grand Slam events in Melbourne, London and New York.

He won Olympic singles and doubles gold and helped Spain to four Davis Cup titles, most recently in 2019.

Before the swansong, Federer hailed Nadal for forcing him to rethink his style.

“You made me reimagine my game,” Federer conceded. “Even going so far as to change the size of my racquet head, hoping for any edge.”

But it was to no avail. Nadal emerged the victor in 24 of their 40 encounters.

“What an incredible run you’ve had.” added Federer. “Including 14 French Opens – historic! You made Spain proud … you made the whole tennis world proud.”

Lebanese footballer Celine Haidar was about to make her dream of playing for the national women’s team come true, but debris from an Israeli strike left the 19-year-old in a medically induced coma.

After full-blown war erupted in September, Haidar’s family were among more than a million people who fled south Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, as Israeli bombs rained down.

“But Celine had to come back to (south) Beirut for her studies and training,” her father Abbas Haidar told AFP.

“She would leave the house after evacuation calls were issued or bombing intensified, then she’d come back home at night to sleep,” he said.

Now, she is the latest athlete to become a casualty of Israeli strikes, which already forced the Lebanese Football Association to postpone all domestic football competitions indefinitely.

On Saturday, her father called her to warn of new evacuation orders published by the Israeli military online and she left the house.

But soon after, “my wife called to tell me Celine was in the hospital,” he said.

She had been seriously wounded in an Israeli strike on her home neighbourhood of Shiyah, as the air force pummelled Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Cracked skull

Footage of Haidar lying unconscious on the ground, her face covered in blood, while a young man beside her cried in pain took Lebanese social media by storm.

“The strike was close and she was hit in the head,” her mother Sanaa Sharhour told AFP. “My daughter has a brain haemorrhage, her skull is cracked.”

Sharhour said her daughter had sent her a message asking her to prepare her favourite dish, but “an hour later her friend called to say she had been wounded”.

“My daughter is a heroine, she will get up,” she said, her eyes red with tears.

“She dreamt of competing abroad. She said she wanted to be like (Cristiano) Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi… She wanted to be a star and for everyone to talk about her.

“Now everyone is talking about her because she was wounded in a war that she has nothing to do with.

“They killed her dream.”

‘A fighter’ on the pitch

Haidar was a pillar of her club, Beirut Football Academy (BFA), which won the Lebanese Women’s Football League last season without dropping a single point, and was due to don the captain’s armband this season.

The midfielder was also part of the national women’s Under-18 team that won the 2022 West Asian Football Federation championship.

Now she is in a medically induced coma, team manager Ziad Saade said.

“The doctors are following her very closely,” her father told AFP from the Saint-Georges Hospital in Beirut where his daughter is being treated.

“But her injuries are serious, we hope she will gradually heal,” he said with tears in his eyes.

“We’re paying the price for something that’s not our fault.”

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,544 people have been killed since Hezbollah began trading fire with Israel in October last year, with most deaths recorded since Israel stepped up its campaign in September.

“On the pitch, she’s a fighter, she was the link between defence and attack,” coach Samer Barbari said, as he and teammates visited her at the hospital.

“She is an exceptional girl and an excellent player.” 

England’s Charley Hull fired a two-under par 68 and clung to a one-stroke lead over top-ranked Nelly Korda and China’s Zhang Weiwei after Saturday’s third round of the LPGA Annika tournament.

Hull found water at the 18th hole and made bogey but kept the lead alone when Korda three-putted for bogey in near-darkness at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.

“Played pretty solid. I felt like I played well all day,” Hull said. “But finishing in the dark wasn’t that fun. Shame to finish on a bogey but it was a good up-and-down.”

That left Hull on 12-under 198 with US star Korda, a six-time winner this year, shooting 67 to stand second on 199 with Zhang, who fired an LPGA career-low 62 to leap into contention.

“I just felt it was amazing day,” Zhang said. “I don’t know how to play that well today. Just keep patient and just like normal and then I holed a lot of putts. That made me so surprised on some holes.”

Thailand’s Wichanee Meechai and South Korea’s Im Jin-hee shared fourth on 201 with Germany’s Olivia Cowan fifth on 202 and a pack on 203 including Japan’s Minami Katsu, Mexico’s Gaby Lopez and Americans Rose Zhang and Bailey Tardy.

World number 12 Hull, a two-time LPGA winner seeking her first tour victory since October 2022, won her fourth Ladies European Tour title — and first in three years — two weeks ago at Riyadh.

Korda, in her first event after a neck injury sidelined her last month, seeks her first victory since June.

Dark end irks leaders

Hull opened with a birdie, added another at the par-5 seventh and had three birdie-bogey runs in the final seven holes — at the par-3 12th and par-4 13th, the par-5 14th and par-3 15th and the par-4 17th and 18, where she sank a four-foot bogey putt after a splashdown on her approach.

“It was kind of dark. Then it got the wind up, and I hit a really good 7-iron in and hit it pure. It just come up short in the water,” Hull said.

“Tricky little up-and-down, but my putt, I could barely see the hole. I couldn’t see the break or anything. So it was pretty dark to finish in.”

Korda stumbled early with bogeys at the second and fourth holes but closed the front nine with back-to-back birdies. She added birdies at 11 and 14, birdied 16 and 17 then had a three-putt bogey at 18 after a four-foot par putt miss.

“I had a good middle of the round. Just played some solid golf on the back nine and started hitting my driver a little better,” Korda said.

She wasn’t happy about finishing in the dark either.

“Was a little bit of poor planning by starting so late for us,” Korda said. “Whenever you’re sitting on 18 and the sun is already down, it’s never nice, especially with how slick these greens are and you can’t properly see.

“At the end of the day I’m the one that missed it.”

Zhang, 27, is a five-time China Tour winner whose best LPGA finish was a share of 10th at Portland in 2022.