The painful physical reality of Nadal

After signing the umpteenth heroics in Australia, where on January 30 he raised his 21st major in the form of an unexpected sporting resurrection by himself, Rafael Nadal insisted on conveying a message that went far beyond punctual success.

So, he said and underlined, his priority was to feel the daily adrenaline of professionalism again and compete again with the regularity that he had lacked during the previous two campaigns, in which he was barely able to play seven tournaments in each one due to the prolonged break in competition. the pandemic (2020) and the physical scourge of the left foot last year.

At the beginning of this course, the Spaniard met with his team to design the roadmap and, always in line with precaution, set the goal of returning to play as many tournaments as possible, taking into account, of course, the instant response from your physique.

“Dose me more?

If I did, I would stop being a tennis player”, he reasoned after winning in Australia.

From there he jumped to Acapulco, with two titles already in his pocket, and after winning the third and being able to fight on the track without limitations, he encountered two unpleasant potholes on the demanding Indian Wells track, where he lost to Taylor Fritz in the final (6-3 and 7-6(5).

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Fritz ends Nadal's streak

The pain in his left foot, in which he has suffered from a chronic injury since he was 18 years old, avoided the treatment carried out by the Spaniard and gave him a warning during the round of 16 match against Reilly Opelka.

“I am not going to lie or hide things, he has bothered me more.

Now I must make one last effort and trust that I can hold on,” he stated.

Previously he had managed to overcome two thorny crosses with Sebastian Korda (three sets, 2h 36m) and Daniel Evans (1h 42m), and in the quarters he ran into the good version of Nick Kyrgios, who also forced him to play three sets.

Demanded in each round and pending to control the foot, in the semifinals a new enemy appeared;

a stabbing pain in the left pectoral that required medical attention in the duel against Carlos Alcaraz and that less than twenty-four hours later worsened in the final against the American Fritz.

foot and ribs

Despite the damage caused by the stings, he decided to jump onto the track, but the matter escalated and he had to be assisted twice.

He put his hand to his chest several times and while his physio massaged him on the cement, he gritted his teeth in pain.

“It was hard for me to breathe.

I don't know if it's something in the ribs... It's like having a needle in there all the time.

It hurts, it's very uncomfortable and it limits me a lot.

I get a little dizzy because it's painful”, he detailed, specifying that the shortness of time between the semifinal and the final prevented him from dealing with the injury properly;

"more than sad about the loss, something that I accepted immediately, and even before the game was over, it's that I'm suffering a little, honestly."

Nadal's tennis dimension allows him on many occasions to save matches in which he does not need to push his body to the limit.

In Indian Wells, however, he found no respite and the physical toll of the clash with Alcaraz, 17 years his junior (35-18), ended up harming him to a practically unbearable degree, even though his pain threshold is higher than of the average

Instead of putting on the handbrake and giving up the final, he made a leap of faith and even came close to winning a set from Fritz, competing well below his real chances, far from one hundred percent.

Nadal returns the ball during Sunday's game. FREDERIC J. BROWN (AFP)

Upon his return to Spain, since before this latest mishap he had already announced that he would not participate in Miami in order to dose himself, Nadal will evaluate the injury and proceed to get to the clay court tour in the best possible way, which begins on the 10th of April in Monte Carlo.

At first he contemplated doing the complete route, from the Principality to Barcelona, ​​from there to Madrid, stopping in Rome and Roland Garros as the culmination;

however, he may have to reconsider the plan and scrap some of the dates, depending on how his body reacts to the stress of continued competition.

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Carlos Alcaraz crosses another border

Despite the fact that clay is less corrosive than asphalt in physical terms, last year the foot began to give him trouble in the spring and completely truncated his approach.

Now it is the chest, and tomorrow it is not known, so the Spaniard must multiply his zeal to safeguard the chassis and fulfill that desire to intervene frequently, and not jerkily.

“It's hard to have these feelings any day, but in a final it's very, very ugly.

Today [for Sunday] is a tough day, but the last two months have been amazing,” he noted before leaving the Coachella Valley and heading home;

“Now is the time to try to fix this problem as soon as possible, and try to start on the ground.

What worries me now is what is happening to me, what I have to do to recover and how long it will take me.

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