By 2012, the three horsemen of men’s tennis won everything, couldn’t be beaten by anyone but each other, and dragged the sport into the future with whirling top-spin forehands and impossibly precise backhands. They expanded what tennis perfection could be, and I felt I needed to choose a side in the arms race.

Rafael Nadal has confirmed that he will retire from professional tennis after the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain this November. “The reality is that it has been some difficult years, these last two especially. I don’t think I have been able to play without limitations,” he said in a video released Thursday October 10.