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Bautista Agut: ‘I feel the time has come to start saying goodbye’
Former Top-10 star Bautista Agut reveals he will retire at the end of the 2026 season
April 16, 2026
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Roberto Bautista Agut climbed as high as No. 9 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
By ATPTour.com/es Staff
The time has come to say adios. Roberto Bautista Agut announced on Thursday that he will bring his long and successful ATP Tour career to a close at the end of this season, after two decades at the top of professional tennis. The Spaniard spent 27 weeks in the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings, peaking at World No. 9.
“I’ve been living a dream for many years. I’ve given everything I had in every practice session and every match,” Bautista Agut said. “Now I feel the time has come to start saying goodbye, to enjoy every tournament in a different way and to end this phase of my life with gratitude for my beloved tennis.”
The Castellon native, who has just turned 37, has enjoyed a very different career to many of his countrymen. His style of play, based around powerful, flat hitting from the baseline, has allowed him to become one of the Tour’s most versatile players, winning at least one title on hard, clay, grass, and indoor hard court.
Bautista Agut has 12 ATP Tour titles under his belt, the first coming on the lawns of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2012. It is grass where he has performed best, with a 67.1 per cent win rate, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index. In addition, at Wimbledon he enjoyed his best run at a major, reaching the semi-finals in 2019.
However, hard court proved more fruitful for him. Auckland 2016, Sofia 2016, Chennai 2017, Winston-Salem 2017, Auckland 2018, Dubai 2018, Doha 2019, 2022, and Antwerp 2024 make up his collection of nine titles on hard, both outdoors and indoors. Meanwhile, Stuttgart 2014 and Kitzbuehel 2022 were his two triumphs on clay.
“I want to be present until the final point of the year,” Bautista Agut said of his time remaining on the ATP Tour. “I want to feel and appreciate the support of the people, to compete one more time in the tournaments that have been part of my life, and to say farewell on court, which is where I’ve always been happiest.”
The Spaniard has played more than 700 tour-level matches during his career, with a record of 435-297. His journey began at home, in Valencia, where he played his first match in 2009 against fellow Spaniard Albert Montanes. However, he would have to wait until 2012 to notch his first win.
Bautista Agut won his first ATP Tour match at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Miami against Andreas Seppi, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, in a tournament where he managed to come through the qualifying. That season, at the age of 24, he broke into the Top 100 for the first time on 13 August 2012.
Perhaps the end has arrived sooner than he would have liked, but it certainly comes with the pride of having been one of his country’s leading players over recent decades.
