‘Gracias Rafa’ – why retiring Nadal means so much

When travelling along the motorway past Malaga’s Palacio de Deportes this week, it was impossible not to spot the ginormous canvas paying tribute to the retiring Rafael Nadal.

The middle of the banner has a cartoonish depiction of Nadal in a familiar pose.

Biceps bulging out of a sleeveless shirt, sweaty scalp wrapped in a white bandana, plastered fingers on his left hand gripping a racquet.

The caricature is sandwiched between two words: “Gracias Rafa.”

A simple message, which evokes a multitude of memories for almost an entire nation, neatly summed up what Nadal means to Spain.

“Gracias is the first word which comes to mind when you reflect on everything we have witnessed over the past 20 years, watching Rafa play,” Feliciano Lopez, Nadal’s former Davis Cup team-mate and a close friend for more than 20 years, told BBC Sport.

“We can only be thankful to him, to experience and live what he has achieved.

“Nobody in Spain could have ever imagined before him that we would have someone who could achieve so much on a tennis court.”

The achievements have to be seen in writing to be believed: 22 Grand Slam titles, 92 ATP Tour titles, two Olympic gold medals, four Davis Cup final triumphs, 209 weeks as world number one, 912 consecutive weeks in the top 10.

No wonder the fans flocked to Malaga on Tuesday – at varying costs – for what proved to the final match of his career after he lost in Spain’s defeat by the Netherlands in the Davis Cup quarter-finals.

They cheered. They cried. They even celebrated missed first serves by the Dutch in a football-style atmosphere.