Retirement was like a powerful death for Nadal, says series director
Many football players and celebrities say retirement is "like a first death". For tennis player Rafael Nadal, saying goodbye to the sport was like this, but in a "particularly powerful" way.
This is what filmmaker Zach Heinzerling, director of the series "Rafa", which Netflix launches next Friday (29), told CNN Brasil. The four-episode production closely follows the tennis player's final professional season.
While the "King of Clay" tries to overcome physical limitations between 2023 and 2024, seeking one last glory in the sport, the series transports the viewer to remarkable scenes of victories and pain that Nadal dealt with for 23 years, with 22 slams won.
"I think this is precisely the essence of the series. How does someone trained to never give up decide to give up? How does someone with that mentality decide to stop?", asks Heinzerling in the interview.
"And, for Rafa, this process was different from anyone else's. He had to go through a series of disappointments and signs from his own body saying that he couldn't continue anymore."
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"A painful and emotional process"
The American director says that, when diving into the project, he imagined that he would be following "the last dance", one last victorious campaign by Rafael Nadal.
As time passed, he saw his story going in another direction.
"It ended up becoming the question: 'When is he going to retire? How long will this last? And why doesn't he retire?'", continued the director. "It was a painful and emotional process."
"That question - 'why doesn't he retire?' - takes you back to the past and helps you understand that the same trait that led you to so many victories is also what makes it so difficult to stop."
Especially when you've been playing tennis since you were three years old and it becomes your identity. So I think it's correct to say that it's a kind of death. And, in Rafa's case, a particularly powerful death.
Find out the value of the golden racket that Rafael Nadal won
Source: CNN