Spain’s Ferrero announces retirement

Former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero will retire from professional tennis in October after a 14-year career in which he won 16 tour titles, he said on Wednesday. Ferrero, 32, said he would retire after the Valencia Open 500 tournament in his home city in eastern Spain from Oct.20 to 28, organisers said in a statement. “The Valencia Open 500 will be my last tournament, on the best stage possible,” it quoted Ferrero as saying at the launch of the Valencia event. Ferrero, nicknamed “The Mosquito”, won the French Open in 2003 and reached the final of the US Open the same year. He won 15 other major tour titles and reached the finals of a further 17. He has not played for two months due to injury. “This season, injuries have prevented me from playing continually and it has been a complicated year because I noticed on the court that I did not have the same ambition after 14 years at the top level,” he said. Ferrero in 2003 became the second Spanish player after Carlos Moya to occupy the world number one spot, before the rise of Rafael Nadal.