"The day my career ends I won't know what to do, I won't be a happy guy," Rafael Nadal once said.
And the end of the tunnel seems to be getting closer little by little.
"I am mentally destroyed," declared the Spaniard in his early defeat.
"The glass is filling up," warned Rafa.
"Tired", "sad", "disappointed", "destroyed...".
He spared no Rafael Nadal adjectives to describe his feelings after his injury at the Australian Open, the umpteenth physical setback for the Spanish champion who seems to be reaching the limit.
Elbow, shoulder, hand, back, hip, foot, abs and now the hip: injuries have been a constant in Nadal's career, but he has become a specialist in suffering, recovering and persevering.
But,
at 36 years old and with his first newborn son
, the Spaniard sounded especially dejected after being eliminated in the second round of the Australian Open, victim of the American Mackenzie McDonald and his battered body.
"It hurts as always, but in the end the glass fills up," he later explained at a press conference.
"It is evident that things are happening and at a sporting level the glass fills up and there comes a time when the water can come out," he added.
Just a year ago, the Spaniard scored a feat in Melbourne: after months off the slopes due to a chronic foot ailment, Nadal kept the title after coming back from an epic final that he had lost to the Russian Daniil Medvedev.
With 21 Grand Slams,
he became the man with the greatest titles in history
, a milestone he later extended with his fourteenth victory on the clay at Roland Garros.
But when the best Nadal seemed to return, the ghost of injuries reappeared in July on the grass of Wimbledon with an abdominal tear.
With obvious signs of pain and
with his father telling him to quit from the stands
, Nadal held out to beat American Taylor Fitz in the quarterfinals, but the next day he threw in the towel before playing the semifinals.
Rafa's faces in his defeat in Australia. Photo: EFE
"
It didn't make sense to play if I want to continue my career
," said Nadal then, who continued to limp at the end of August during the US Open, where he lost in the round of 16 to American Frances Tiafoe.
"I have not been able to finish the last three Grand Slams in good condition: two abdominal tears, here I do not know what happened to the hip. We can come here and put on a good face and accept things (...) but one does not have to be fooled either ".
"I am tired, I am sad, I am disappointed, all this is a reality. From here, I suppose that when things progress, the appropriate decisions will be made because what I want is to continue playing tennis," he added.
So much so that he did not want to leave the Rod Laver Arena.
With his wife crying in the stands, Nadal briefly retired to the locker room to receive medical attention and, although unable to run or hardly hit a backhand, he held out until the end of the duel against McDonald (6-4, 6-4, 7-5 ).
"I didn't want to retire as the defending champion here," he said.
"I tried to keep playing without increasing the damage. I couldn't backhand him late. I couldn't run for the ball. But I just wanted to finish the game."
In the midst of suffering that he had to mistreat throughout the game, Rafa was irritable for the little time he had to take the towel, before returning to take the service: "The towel is there and I always see the clock that continues 5, 4...", Rafa complained.
And then he grabbed it with the chair judge: "It's always the same with you, it doesn't matter."
The situation was repeated in several passages of the match.
"We need someone to bring us the towels, they are very far away. Why can't the ball boys bring us the towels?" Rafa insisted that he usually uses dozens of towels to dry his perspiration in each game.
While waiting for the details of the injury, Nadal is confident that he will be able to return to the circuit soon.
In 2021, he left his season halfway through due to a foot ailment and now he arrived in Melbourne with few games in recent months due to an abdominal tear.
"I hope I don't have to spend a lot of time outside again because, in the end, it's very difficult to get in shape (...) When you continually have breaks it becomes really difficult and even more so at an advanced age," he said.
Looking at the floor, this is how Rafa Nadal retired after his defeat with Mc Donald.
REUTERS/Carl Recine
But despite his 36 years and his body martyred by injuries, Nadal still does not want to follow the path of his adversary and friend Roger Federer, with whom he shared tears in his retirement after a last doubles match together in September.
"It's very simple: I like what I do. I like playing tennis. I know it's not forever," but "when you like something, the sacrifice makes sense."
"When you like what you do, at the end of the day, it's not a sacrifice."
With information from AFP, agencies and social networks
