Rafael Nadal announces absence from Roland-Garros and potential retirement in 2022

Rafael Nadal down. The Spaniard with fourteen record trophies at Roland-Garros, injured and off the circuit for four months, announced this Thursday his package for the Parisian Grand Slam, his beloved playground, ten days before his kick-off. Adding that “next year” would be “probably the last” of his career.

“The injury I suffered in Australia has not evolved as we wanted, so I will not be able to be there at Roland-Garros,” the 36-year-old Spaniard told a press conference in Mallorca. . Nadal, who has won 22 Grand Slams like Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, is suffering from a left hip injury that has plagued him since January. He added that he would be unavailable “for the next few months”, thus ruling out his participation at least at Wimbledon.

It was on his island of Mallorca, in his tennis academy, that the Spaniard communicated his decision, which resounded like a thunderclap. Because since his first coronation on Parisian clay in 2005, two days after his 19th birthday, Nadal has never failed Porte d’Auteuil. He has accumulated more than 110 victories there and has only experienced three defeats (in 2009, 2015 and 2021), plus a withdrawal during the tournament (2016, because of his left wrist).

A year ago, even an anesthetized left foot to contain the pain caused by the chronic pain he has suffered from since the age of 18 (Müller-Weiss syndrome) did not prevent him from triumphing there for the fourteenth times, and for the 22nd time in a Grand Slam – a record shared with Novak Djokovic since.

37 years in full Roland-Garros

Inevitably, his absence in Paris did not take long to also reactivate speculation on the continuation of his career and the potential imminence of his retirement from sport. “Next year will probably be the last year” of his career, he added Thursday.

The Majorcan – who will be 37 in the middle of Roland-Garros on June 3 – has not appeared in competition for four months flat, the fault of a stubborn muscle injury to the left hip (iliopsoas muscle). His last match, a three-set loss in the second round of the Australian Open to American Mackenzie McDonald, in which he was injured, dates back precisely to January 18.

Initially assessed at between six and eight weeks, his absence has only stretched since, like the list of his forced capitulations, from the American tour on hard (Indian Wells and Miami) to the European season on ochre, from Monte-Carlo to Rome, via Barcelona and Madrid. And now Roland-Garros.

Only one victory in 2023

The last time he spoke, a dozen days ago, to announce that he would not play in the Italian capital, Nadal had given rise to a glimmer of hope by evoking “an improvement observed in recent days “, without detailing it further. But “I haven’t been able to train at a high level for many months, the recovery process takes time and I have no choice but to accept it and continue to work”, resigned himself. he in the same message. Until then, his 2023 record is starving: a single victory, and four games played.

Although injuries have often caught up with him throughout the more than twenty years of his exceptional career, they have given him almost no respite for a year, from his foot to his left hip, including two abdominal tears. ‘last summer. In nine months, he has only played thirteen matches (a Grand Slam title requires winning seven) and lost eight. In the standings, he has slipped, for the moment, to fourteenth place.

The Spaniard has never landed on his beloved playground without the slightest match on ocher in the legs, and he preferred not to take any risks. If injuries leave him alone in 2024, the public at Porte d’Auteuil has one year to hope to see Nadal bite one last time in the tournament and, why not, win the Mousquetaires Cup for the 15th time at the end of the Paris fortnight. .