Rafter: Why I quit
By Leo Schlink
January 9, 2004
PAT Rafter yesterday admitted he had lost his nerve at the end of his career.
The former world No.1 and dual US Open champion revealed the pressures of performing, as much as the stress fracture in his right arm, caused him to quit after the 2001 Davis Cup final loss, ranked No.7 in the world.
"I was actually starting to lose my nerve a little bit as well," Rafter, 31, said of his decision to retire in the same season he had reached his second Wimbledon final.
"I wasn't enjoying all the expectation and pressure on me before matches, whereas before I used to really enjoy it and it was good fun to go out there.
"That side of things really caught up with me. I didn't enjoy the feeling of waiting to go on to court."
The Queenslander, who made his first competitive appearance in two years by partnering friend Josh Eagles in AAPT Championships doubles in Adelaide, conceded he was mentally exhausted in the months before his retirement.
"It was pretty well the whole of the last year I played," he said.
"And I did find it hard at smaller tournaments when you had incentive (appearance money) to go to these tournaments and they're expecting you to win every match and you could come up against someone like Vince Spadea right now and not knowing exactly if you're gonna win or not, regardless of who it is.
"And if you lose, you just feel like you've let the tournament down, let yourself down and all those pressures sort of compounded throughout the last year that I played.
"At Davis Cup matches, too, I started really getting nervous all well. The whole pressure was on you to win and I didn't handle that as well as I could have."
Admitting now to being bored as he searches to fill the void left after a glorious career which included a week-long stint as world No.1, more than $US11million prizemoney and successive appearances in the Wimbledon final, Rafter stressed his comeback was merely temporary.
"Today was I just reminiscing as I was walking here that after I had done a couple of hours of training I would have had to go and run for an hour," he said.
"I just could not think of anything worse. Now when I feel like getting off the court and I do half an hour, if I'd had enough, I walk off and that's great.
"Before I could never do that. I had to stay, I had to grind it out, I knew I had to go for the run. I had to do the treatment, the massages. All day was full and that's very selfish. I just knew I didn't want to do that any more."
Herald Sun
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