For more than two decades, Rafael Nadal has martyred his body and dominated pain and injury only thanks to his extraordinary mind, until winning in 2022, despite a left foot that has made him suffer for 18 years, a 14th Roland-Garros, his 22nd Grand Slam title.
This time, it was a hip injury in the second round of the Australian Open in January, which forced him to withdraw from his favorite tournament of Roland-Garros. Hoping that his body will allow him to return by the end of the year before a probable retirement in 2024.
Read alsoRoland-Garros: Nadal declares forfeit and announces his probable retirement in 2024
A fight against injuries at all times
The left elbow, shoulder, hand and wrist, back, right forearm (while playing with his left hand), abdominals, ribs but also knees, ankles, thigh ... "He is an injured person who plays tennis," summed up his uncle and historical coach Toni Nadal in April 2019, according to comments reported by the Spanish newspaper Cinco Dias.
According to his doctor Angel Ruiz, the player has "a wonderful genetics" that he combines with a mental like no other and especially with "an exceptional resistance to pain that would be 9 on a scale of 10".
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The majority of players would have retired, he would not, "insists the doctor in an interview published in June 2019 in the Spanish daily El Mundo. In 2009, it was with an abdominal tear that he approached the US Open. "Since it only gets in the way of serving and not really the rest, I played and lost in the semis to Del Potro. But the tear went from 7mm to 27mm, it was a bit stupid of me," Nadal said.
In 2014, it was with almost a hole in his left hand, due to a huge blister, that he appeared in the semifinals of the Australian Open against Roger Federer... which he beat in three sets before losing in the final to Stan Wawrinka.
On several occasions, injuries have kept him out of the circuit. Always, until then, he had returned. Not just to play, but to win.
Thus, at the end of the 2008 season, he suffered from tendinitis in his knee. He dropped out at Paris-Bercy and gave up the Masters at the end of the year. All this to return two months later to the Australian Open 2009 and make Federer cry after inflicting one of the most crushing defeats of his career at the end of a match of 4:30. In the semis, the Spaniard had already fought 5:14 to eliminate Fernando Verdasco.
The first long break in his career came in 2012 when he ended his season after a second-round loss at Wimbledon, again due to knee pain.
Returning to the circuit in February 2013, he won ten tournaments that year, including Roland-Garros and the US Open, as well as five Masters 1000.
Last two years of galleys
But his most brilliant return, because perfectly unlikely at more than 35 years old, is that of 2022.
Eliminated by Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of Roland-Garros in the spring of 2021, Nadal was faced with a sudden awakening of pain in his left foot, suffering for years from Müller-Weiss syndrome, a degenerative necrosis of the scaphoid bone that causes a bone of the foot to no longer be irrigated normally and gradually dies. This disease is "chronic and incurable", in the words of the player who has had to manage it since he was 18 years old.
He has not played again for the season and, positive for Covid-19 in December 2021, he approached the 2022 season with more than approximate preparation.
Winner of the Melbourne tournament, he followed up with a phenomenal and historic victory at the Australian Open: by going up two sets in the final against Daniil Medvedev, he brought to 21 the record of Grand Slam titles.
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This injury would prevent 99% of humans from moving at the speed at which it moves, "said the president of the Spanish Society of Sports Traumatology, Dr. Rafael Arriaza, to the daily Voz de Galicia at the end of January 2022.
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Rafa hits the ball much better than before, but he runs much worse than before. As long as the results are there we do not always see it, but for me it is ultra obvious. And all of a sudden, it will drop so much physically that it will not even allow him to hit as he can, and the decline is rapid, "warned Frenchman Gilles Simon in an interview with AFP on May 9, 2022.
At Indian Wells 2022, it was a rib fatigue fracture that likely cost him the final after a semi-final win over phenom Carlos Alcaraz.
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I think he has unimaginable pain when he gets up in the morning or when he leaves the field and I usually say that when Rafa starts to wince, to say that he is in pain somewhere, for us it would be a vital prognosis engaged...", according to former French player Fabrice Santoro, now a consultant for Prime Video.