Rafa Nadal’s coach blasts ‘shabby’ Davis Cup farewell ceremony

Rafa Nadal’s manager has described the Spaniard’s farewell ceremonial astatine the Davis Cup arsenic ‘scruffy and shabby’.

Nadal played the last lucifer of his vocation connected Tuesday nighttime as helium mislaid successful consecutive sets to Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp successful the Davis Cup 4th last successful Malaga.

A tiny ceremonial was held connected tribunal aft Nadal’s defeat, with messages from Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Serena Williams played successful a video earlier the 38-year-old gave a code to the crowd.

Tournament director, Feliciano Lopez, aboriginal admitted that plans for the ceremonial were rushed, despite Nadal announcing his plans to discontinue astatine the Davis Cup past month.

‘I was a spot bittersweet astir everything, it didn’t spell good astatine all,’ Lopez said.

‘Spain lost, Rafa couldn’t vie the mode helium liked. They ended up losing and the ambiance successful wide was a spot sad. Everything went wrong.

‘We would person liked to person a batch much radical successful the video, athletes who are friends of Rafa, but those videos arrived excessively precocious to beryllium edited. It was each a spot of a contention against time.’

Now Nadal’s long-time coach, Carlos Moya, has besides criticised the send-off the 22-time Grand Slam victor received this week.

‘The feeling we are each near with is it was a spot scruffy and shabby,’ Moya told Onda Cero.

‘It’s existent that it’s a Tuesday nighttime but this is athletics and we knew months successful beforehand that if Spain lost, Rafa would retire. Nadal is acold supra each this.

‘In what remains for maine successful tennis, it volition beryllium intolerable for maine to relive what I person experienced with him.’

Spain skipper David Ferrer said this week: ‘Losing makes you consciousness sad.

‘Rafa Nadal volition instrumentality to the large tournaments adjacent twelvemonth and volition person much tributes wherever helium tin beryllium recognised.’

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