January 2 marked Rafael Nadal’s return to tennis, after spending almost all of 2023 dealing with a hip injury that caused him to lose in last year’s Australian Open: his absence caused him to fall to world position number 672. in what he admitted was the most difficult year of his professional career.
His return felt good as he began with a 7-5, 6-1 victory against Dominic Thiem in Brisbane.
Although nervous, the victory showed that he was ready to play at a good level: “You go out on the court with more nerves than usual because you are at the end of your recovery and inside you know that it could be a disaster: that worried me,” said the Spaniard.
However, the smile did not last long and in the quarterfinals the winner of 22 Grand Slams, in addition to requesting a medical timeout in the third set, lost with a score of 5-7, 7-6 (6) and 6 -3 against Jordan Thompson. “I didn’t play badly, but I was one point away,” he lamented.
Nadal explained that the annoyance that led him to ask for time out, although coming from a similar place, was not the same as that which took him off the courts in 2023: it was a muscular issue and, in any case, he had hopes that It was just fatigue. “Many things can be happening in a body like mine after a year without playing tennis. Hopefully it’s just that: overworked muscle. If that is the question, perfect,” he added.
Although Nadal was willing to return to the same tournament that fired him in 2023, through a statement he reported that he would not be able to participate in the Australian Open and that he would return to Spain for treatment.
“During my last game in Brisbane I had a problem with a muscle that had me worried. When I arrived in Melbourne I was able to have an MRI and I have a micro muscle tear, although not in the same part where I had the injury. That last bit is good news,” he said.
The report was accompanied by a sad confession: “I am not prepared to compete at the highest level of demand.”
Naturally, these statements made at the beginning of the year already put Nadal’s participation in the rest of the 2024 events on the table.
With the Australian Open, it will be the fourth major tennis tournament that he has missed since January 2023 and would add 15 Grand Slams in which he has withdrawn due to injury or illness.
The Spaniard maintains the hope of participating and being crowned at Roland Garros. “As always, my goal is to be back at my best level in three months,” he said on January 7.
But will that be possible or will this be the year of his definitive retirement from professional sports?
Eternal return
On January 18, 2023, an injury to the iliac soas of his left leg led Nadal to lose to Mackenzie McDonald and withdraw from the Australian Open. What the Spaniard’s technical team first announced as a four-week break turned into eleven months of absence.
Still last May, Nadal announced that he was not recovering as he would have liked: “It is impossible for me to be at Roland Garros, after so many years without missing the event. But I don’t think I deserve to end up like this, in a press conference,” he added.
In early June he underwent surgery to treat his hip, but it took him more than a month to recover. “They opened it and saw that what was there was more delicate than they thought. Tests and MRIs were done, but it seems that they did not see what it really was. The recovery time has been longer than expected,” explained Carlos Moyá, Nadal’s former tennis player and coach.
When the winner of 22 Grand Slams had already announced his return to Brisbane, his coach insisted on the importance of having progressive training: “To reach your best level, the difficulties have to increase; It’s like a video game: you may think you’re playing very well, but they take you to the last level and eliminate you in two minutes.”
In fact, Moyá confessed that on many occasions he thought that Nadal would no longer return to the courts, despite his clear intentions: “Entering the operating room is the last burning nail that you hold onto to try to return and retire on the court. Knowing those risks, Nadal has tried it because it was the only way he had to return. But when you go through an operation like this…”
As he shared, questions like “will the body respond?” or “Will it be able to withstand the loads?” They complicate training and, in any case, darken the panorama of tournaments like Brisbane, where Nadal’s body simply said “enough.”
The Spaniard seems to have the intention of returning to say goodbye to tennis on the courts, as Roger Federer did in September 2022, after playing with Nadal himself in the Laver Cup in London.
In this regard, Moyá pointed out that few tennis players have really been able to retire as they wanted, because “no one can say that the sport is fair. Leaving a sport that you have done all your life, that gets you hooked by that special adrenaline, is very complicated. Nadal doesn’t want to close that door. If everything goes well and holds up, why not continue? If he enjoys it, has a good time and it’s what he likes to do, why not?”
Despite the result in Brisbane, Nadal remains positive, accompanied by his family, his technical team and his fans who solemnly wait for him to return to the clay circuits, his favorite soil.
The question, in addition to his necessary recovery, will be whether his level is enough to compete with young people like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, or with the world tennis star himself, Novak Djokovic. “We all remain positive with the evolution of the season,” declared Nadal on Sunday the 7th.
2024-01-15 02:14:30
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