NINE-TIME French Open champion Rafael Nadal pulled out of the claycourt grand slam tournament yesterday, citing an injury to his left wrist. I arrived here with a little bit of pain but something that I thought I was able to manage.
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Nadal stated to a stunned gathering: “Yesterday I played with an injection”. “I spoke about that the other day, if it was possible to get this one done quickly, it gives me a chance to kind of recover from the first few days, which is good”.
A day before his third-round match, he said the tendon sheath of his left wrist was so inflamed that he needed a numbing injection to play his second-round match, which he won on Thursday.
Muguruza, who was the runner-up at Wimbledon past year and reached the quarterfinals at the French Open in 2014 and 2015, lost one service game to Wickmayer in the first set but otherwise had no real difficulties.
In Doha, Nadal succumbed to a 6-1 6-2 beating from Djokovic, then came close to defeating Nole in the semifinal round of Indian Wells 7-6 (5) 6-2.
Nadal’s withdrawal automatically advances Marcel Granollers to the fourth round, where he will face either Alexander Zverev or 13th-ranked Dominic Thiem.
And it raised more questions about how long Nadal, who turns 30 in a week, can continue to play his intensely physical brand of tennis and remain among the sport’s best.
He said he had been told by doctors that there was no way he could play five more matches here, which he would have had to do to win the tournament.
Just the day before the draw, the 2009 champion and world No3 Roger Federer was forced to withdraw with a back injury, ending his record streak of 65 Grand Slam appearances.
He made every indication he’ll be back here again in 2017.
The left-handed Spaniard wore a blue brace on his wrist during what he called “one of the toughest press conferences in my caree”.
Nadal, plagued by knee and wrist injuries througout his career, added: “This is a very bad position, but that s life”. He is 72-2 in his career at this event, the most wins of any player. He remains tied with Martina Navratilova for most titles at one Slam, Navratilova having won Wimbledon nine times.
“I would have preferred if this had been previous year”, Nadal said, reports USA Today. I was moving forward. “There’ s no way I can play before I can use the forehand”. “I hope to have a fast recovery”. The Spaniard also suffered an injury at 2012 Wimbledon, which kept him out of Tennis courts for seven months, so he may wait for the hard court season for a return. Surgery – at this point – is not required.
“I was ready to run the risk all the way to the limit, but there comes a time where you simply can’t go on”, he said in Spanish. It’s not [torn], but if I keep playing (it will be torn in the) next couple of days.
There is still little information about the nature of Nadal’s wrist injury, but such setback brings the possibility of Rafa missing out on the next major events, including the Wimbledon, Rio Olympics and even the US Open.
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“Every single day we spent a lot of hours here working so hard to try to play”.
