“Progress is what distinguishes humans from the rest of the animals on the planet. A lion. I think his behavior is the same for the last 5,000 years or however many years. Humans have improved, or at least the majority have, and that’s what makes us who we are. We are evolving. That’s the way it works, and that’s what I’ve managed to inculcate in Rafael. Sometimes he’s listened better than at other times, but there’s nothing more to life than that.”

When this season is over, Toni Nadal plans to live life with much less jet lag, to spend time with his family and to focus his professional energies on the Rafa Nadal Academy, which opened last year in Manacor.

His decision to step away from the tour became public in surprisingly awkward fashion in February, with Toni letting the news slip at a coaching conference in Italy before he had informed Rafael in person. He explained that his decision-making role had been gradually reduced through the years.

By then, the Nadals already had added Carlos Moya, the first tennis player from Majorca to reach No. 1, to the coaching team. Toni made it clear that if Moya were not so good at his job, he would not have entertained the idea of leaving his full-time traveling role.

“To coach a player from the start to the top is something you rarely see, not only in tennis but in sport nowadays,” Moya said Friday night. “The person who had the biggest impact on Rafa’s career is Toni, but I understand what he’s thinking. Now he has three kids. He has the academy, which is very important for Rafa, and he’s been traveling for so long.”

There may have been some bruised feelings, but there is no arguing with the results in 2017, which has been a throwback season in the men’s game and, against the odds and the currents, one of the finer seasons in Rafael Nadal’s remarkable career. He has come back from a wrist injury to win four tournaments, including his 10th French Open, and to reach the final of the Australian Open and now the U.S. Open.

“There’s no drama,” Rafael Nadal said Friday night as he looked ahead to the final. “Toni made his decision, and we go forward. For the academy, it will be a big help to have him there, and for me, this is another match. It’s not my last match with him. I keep repeating the same thing. Toni’s not going to live in another part of the world. He lives 100 meters from my house and works in the academy, where I’ll continue to be based. Above all, he’s my uncle. Nothing changes.”