What does “colgar la raqueta” mean in Spanish?

To retire from a sport, Spanish “hangs up” your gear. Colgar la raqueta is the tennis/badminton version of colgar las botas (football boots), colgar los guantes (boxing gloves), or colgar los tenis. The image is the athlete leaving their equipment on the hook for good. By extension it works for any career: alguien que cuelga las botas is simply someone calling it quits.

Marín says she struggled “tener que colgar la raqueta” — “having to hang up the racket” — the emotionally heavy way to announce retirement, far warmer than the dry retirarse. Mind one false friend: colgar los tenis can also be a jokey euphemism for “to die” (“to kick the bucket”), so context decides whether someone is retiring or being mourned. With raqueta and botas, though, it’s almost always career’s end.