Madrid, July 14 (IANS) Veteran Roberto Bautista Agut, one of the ATP Tour’s most consistent performers during the past two decades and a one-time top-10 player, brought his career to an end at the age of 38, claiming the right time to hang up his racquet had arrived.

“The time has come, because I feel it has. It’s a fact of life.” Bautista Agut said about his decision to quit the game.

The Spaniard’s impressive record includes more than 700 ATP Tour matches, with an ATP win-loss record of 436–302. His CV includes 12 titles and a further 11 finals, while he reached a career-high No. 9 in the ATP Rankings in 2019.

After forging one of the most illustrious careers in Spanish tennis, 18 seasons after his first ATP Tour match in Valencia in 2009, his heart is sending him a clear message; it is time to stop.

“There comes a time when your body and mind say ‘enough’,” Bautista Agut told ATPTour.com. “You have to know how to listen to yourself and step away from the Tour when the time is right. I don’t think I’m physically in the same shape as I used to be, either. Given the state my body is in, I can’t cope with four or five matches a week. It’s time.”

The bitter taste of saying goodbye is certainly balanced by the sweet feeling of looking back at a splendid legacy.

“I really value the consistency my career had, being able to play the full calendar without worrying about my ranking, and having enjoyed being among the top players in the world. When I look back, I really value how difficult it was to achieve what I have,” the Spaniard said.

“I’ve been in the Top 100 for 16 years, and for 10 of those I’ve been practically among the Top 20, which is the hardest part, because there are always injuries, difficult spells, and even personal challenges,” Bautista Agut said. “I think being able to stay there for so many years is the greatest achievement of my career, having spent 10 years among the Top 20 in the world.”

To remain at the top, amongst the best, he built up a trophy cabinet containing 12 ATP Tour trophies, a feat achieved by only 15 Spaniards in the Open Era (since 1968). In ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2014, he began a run that continued for 10 years, culminating in his final title in Antwerp in 2024.

“My goal was to reach the Top 100, then the Top 50, later the Top 20, and, finally, the Top 10. It took a lot of hard work, but I managed to achieve those goals one by one. I won a title on grass, then on clay; after that, I wanted to win on hard courts and indoors as well. These were challenges I set myself and managed to overcome,” Bautista Agut said.

On 29 June, Bautista Agut played his last match. It was against João Fonseca in the first round of Wimbledon, the major where he achieved his most notable result: the semifinals in 2019. “I remember I’d been playing very well; I’d reached the semi-finals at Halle in 2018, but I slipped, tore my abdominal muscle and missed Wimbledon,” said the Spaniard.

In his first grass-court tournament that season, he was on the verge of the final when, with the score at 3-2, he was forced to retire against Croatia’s Borna Coric due to injury. But the following year, fate had one of the finest moments of his career in store for him. It came on the very same stage where he had been unable to complete the season before.

“After that injury and missing out on Wimbledon, I reached the semi-finals the following year; that’s the strange way things go in tennis,” Bautista Agut said.

Only Novak Djokovic, in four sets, was able to halt his spectacular run at the All England Club. However, despite that painful defeat, Bautista did manage to beat the 101-time tour-level champion on three occasions in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series (3–9). He was never able to get the better of Roger Federer (0–9) or Rafael Nadal (0-3), but playing against the Big 3 is one of his most cherished memories.

–IANS

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