Rafa Nadal announced this Friday that he would not play again for the remainder of 2021. The Balearic tennis player decided to stop for a few months after being dropped from the Toronto and Cincinnati tournaments due to foot problems that he has dragged on for years.
It’s about Muller-Weiss syndrome, a very annoying ailment that can greatly reduce your performance if you do not recover properly.
This recovery process has spoken in ‘L’Equipe’ the former head of the department of orthopedic surgery at the Vincennes military hospital and one of the reference doctors of the Tour de France, Gilbert Versier.
For Versier, the best is a conservative treatment, since the operation would end the sports career of the Balearic Islands.
“This adaptation of the foot to the ground is blocked and the patient will only be able to walk. He will no longer be able to run. That is why we delay this intervention and reserve it for patients who are extremely painful and can no longer even walk properly. This is not the case with Nadal, of course. Everything that is surgical, the resection of a part of the bone or the graft taking bone from the pelvis to block the joint at the foot level and eliminate pain, no longer allows the practice of sports at a high level “said the doctor, who explained that this type of ailment is not common in young people.
Rafa Nadal’s statement
“It is a very rare pathology, the origin of which is not very clear. It is not necessarily a pathology that evolves very quickly. The degradation that will appear over time is quite painful, but osteoarthritis is often late. They are pathologies that we know well but rather in women around 50 years of age. We don’t see that in a young subject“, he acknowledged.
“It usually affects people who have flat feet. It is congenital. Some have hollow feet: the arch, that is, the distance between the inside of the foot and the ground, is very deep. Others have completely collapsed arches with a valgus foot, which favors this type of pathology. This causes compression of the navicular bone that becomes necrotic. It is the death of the bone, it is not eaten, it has lost its vascularity, “explained Dr. Versier.
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