“Maybe it was….” Rafael Nadal reveals one heartbreaking match in his career that he would wish to play again

TikTok has been one of the many of his pursuits of Rafael Nadal post-retirement.

“Maybe it was….” Rafael Nadal reveals one heartbreaking match in his career that he would wish to play again

Rafael Nadal (image via TikTok)

Earlier this month, Rafael Nadal uploaded his first TikTok video, nearly 5 years after joining the platform. The 22-time Grand Slam champion actively uses the platform now to share interesting content about tennis and his life. 

In a recent TikTok video, he answered a few questions, one of them being, “If you could play a match again, which one will you choose?” The Spaniard chose his 2014 Australian Open final as the answer to this question. 

YouTube video

I believe that if I could play a game again, maybe it was the 2014 Australian Open final to see if I don’t get hurt.

Rafael Nadal via TikTok

Nadal has won the Australian Open twice. In 2009, he defeated Roger Federer to win his maiden Australian Open title. With this victory he also became the first Spaniard to win the Australian Open title. 

In 2022, Nadal defeated Daniil Medvedev to clinch his second Australian Open title. He became the fourth man, after Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, and Novak Djokovic, to achieve the double career Grand Slam and the second in the Open Era. Before his second and final title win Down Under in 2022, Nadal lost four successive championship matches. Two came against Djokovic, one against Federer, and another against Stanislas Wawrinka. 

Rafael Nadal sustained an injury during the 2014 Australian Open finals

At the 2014 Australian Open, Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer in the semifinal to reach his third Australian Open final. In the final, he faced Stanislas Wawrinka, against whom he entered the match with a 12–0 head-to-head record. More astonishingly, Nadal had not lost a set across those 12 matches.

Stan Wawrinka Rafael NadalAustralian Open 2014
Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal at Australian Open 2014 (image via ATP)

However, Nadal endured a back injury during the warm-up, which aggravated as the match went on, requiring a medical timeout in the second set. Nadal lost the first two sets, and although he won the third set, he lost the match in four sets. 

Nadal later revealed that he knew he stood no chance of winning the match once he got injured. Despite that, he kept on playing because it went against his principles to retire in a match as big as the final of a Major. Victory against Wawrinka would have made Nadal the first man in the Open Era to complete the double career Grand Slam, a record that went to Novak Djokovic seven years later.

This triumph marked Wawrinka’s first Grand Slam title. With the victory, Wawrinka became the first man outside the Big Four to win a Grand Slam since Juan Martin del Potro won the 2009 US Open. Wawrinka won his next two Grand Slams in the 2015 French Open and 2016 US Open. In his career, Wawrinka has only defeated Nadal twice after the Australian Open-—the 2015 Rome Masters quarterfinals and the 2015 Paris Masters quarterfinals. 

Jakub Mensik emulates Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic

Jakub Mensik made history by reaching the 2025 Miami Open final with a thrilling win over Taylor Fritz. The young Czech star joined an elite group of tennis legends.

Mensik defeated world No. 4 Fritz 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-6(4) in a tough two-hour-and-24-minute semi-final at Hard Rock Stadium. The match was dominated by strong serves from both players. Fritz managed the only break of the match in the second set. However, Mensik won the first and third set tiebreaks, which made the difference in the end.

The 18-year-old is only the fifth teenager in the past 20 years to reach the Miami Open final. He joins Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, and Carlos Alcaraz on this prestigious list.