Abu Dhabi: It’s top sportspeople’s biggest quandary and often greatest fear when they finish their career: What to do next?
Some move into coaching or become television pundits, but others struggle to fill the void in their life without their beloved professional sport for motivation and slip into depression.
Spanish tennis player Nicolas Almagro has no such worries in that respect, as he has already decided on his future direction — he says he will simply switch sports.
“I want to play golf after my career and have been learning to play,” he told media at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship on Friday.
Almagro has been playing his first tournament since the Barcelona Open last April — where he ended compatriot Rafael Nadal’s 11-year winning streak — after being sidelined with a foot injury.
He said he had avoided speaking about or watching tennis during this frustrating period and found solace in driving and putting, to the extent that he has bought a golf course.
“I had a lot of time to think and I did it [bought a golf course],” Almagro said. “It’s another sport and I want to learn.”
Almagro was on the verge of breaking into the game’s top 10 prior to his injury and says he will try his best to return to the upper echelons of tennis in 2015.
For now, however, he is simply pleased to be back on the court, where he beat fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez more comfortably than the 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) scoreline suggested in the Mubadala fifth place play-off on Friday.
“I am ready to fight and am ready for anything in the next part of my career,” said the 29-year-old, who lost 6-3, 6-2 to Stanislas Wawrinka in the second match of the tournament on Thursday.
He was far more impressive against his out-of-sorts opponent on Friday, with Lopez making a rash of mistakes and appearing weary from his two-hour, 30-minute defeat to Andy Murray the night before.
Almagro stamped his authority on the match immediately, breaking the lacklustre Lopez to 15 in the first game, and was the far more assured player form the baseline.
He claimed the first set 6-4 and looked set to claim the second with ease when he broke Lopez at 1-1, only for the 33-year-old veteran to respond in kind.
However, the stronger Almagro eventually prevailed 8-6 in a tiebreak in the fierce afternoon sun.
