In a tearful ceremony, Nadal leaves his footprint in Paris

Soon the emotion would flow, but for a brief moment he looked awkward on this court he owned.

- Rohit Brijnath

He always walked onto it with a racket, now he came unarmed. He was a creature of action not words, defined by his duels, and yet now during the ceremony he stood completely alone. It felt strange yet fitting. For in a way Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros had no rival. Humans bent to him and so did history.

He wept and so did some in the crowd as he spoke to them in English, French and Spanish. His words we mostly understood. But the spin and ferocity his racket spoke on the clay of Court Philippe-Chatrier for 20 years was a language undecipherable.

Of all the absurd numbers in sport — Helen Wills Moody's 161 straight tennis wins from 1927 to 1933 and Heather McKay's 16 consecutive British Opens in squash from 1962 to 1977 — Nadal's 14 French Opens in a modern era of deep competition has a touch of insanity to it. "Even saying it," noted Lorenzo Musetti, "is ridiculous."

And still on May 25, in a wonderful ceremony to farewell him, he wore this number as he always has — modestly. Later, he'd say "I always had doubts" and this uncertainty remained his inner propellant. And so every single day — he told the media later — he carried a spirit of improvement to the practice court.