I looked Rafael Nadal to the floor once sitting on some stools above the stage. He moved the microphone from one hand to the other, curling his fingers as he looked at the clock. All eyes were on him and the question hovered over the small press room. “Is he coming back? When?” And the most successful Spanish tennis player in history, despite not wanting to set deadlines, was forceful in front of the media. “I don’t know when I’ll come back“, Nadal announced, with a half smile. “I didn’t know if I would ever play tennis again and now I know that I will. I’m happy with how things are developing.“, he confessed, recovering his optimism.
Rafa Nada wanted to be honest before the press: “I have nothing to hide from you“, he defended before explaining the point at which he is in his recovery. A room, packed to listen to him, listened to every sentence he pronounced amidst the sound of the flashes.
Although he does not want to reveal the date of his return, which he himself claims he does not know yet, there are things that he is clear about. The pain is non-negotiable. “It’s not going to disappear. I’ve been playing in pain for many years, that’s not new. The thing is whether to do it with more or less limitations. From how things were going a few months ago, to how they are going now, it’s much better. I’ve given steps forward that have been great and positive. In the following weeks we will know more things. But talking about tennis is talking about something else,” he said.
Last May Rafa Nadal made the decision (or rather it was made by his body) to stop. After the psoas injury suffered at the Australian Open on February 18, his body had not managed to recover in time to play Roland Garros, his favorite tournament on the calendar. For this reason, and coldly analyzing his physical condition, he decided to take a break while announcing that 2024 would be its last year on the professional circuit.
Months passed and Nadal worked in silence. Hours and hours in the gym, constant and sometimes invisible work and some surgical intervention, like the one he underwent at the beginning of June to check the left psoas injury that kept him away from competition.
No return date
“I still have pain, if I didn’t have it I would consider something else. But I’m taking steps forward, I’m doing more and more things,” said the tennis player months after the operation, on October 20. “I am not training without pain. My first option is still Australia – the director of the Open himself advanced it without having the player’s ‘ok’ – but I am not in a position to confirm what will happen to my body in a few months,” he added. with the hope of being able to step on the court again as soon as possible.
And that moment could come next Open the Australia, which takes place from the 14th to the 28th of next January. Although it seems like the most realistic date, Rafa Nadal has not yet wanted to set deadlines for his return in the presentation of the Teknon Tennis Clinic, where he has recounted the last few months he has experienced and the process he has followed to recover from the injury, which he assured It has been hard and has required a lot of effort and tenacity.
He already warned that 2024 would be his last year as a professional tennis player and to close his exceptional and historic career, the man from Manacor starts again in the tournament where everything stopped. A year ago he suffered the injury on the Australian track that began a tough year. Now, eager to enter a court full of people again, look at the same scene with the desire to fight. For him and for his tennis. For the thousands of fans who eagerly await him to watch his game that he has made them enjoy so many times.
His farewell to the courts is getting closer and closer, however, the tennis player from Manacor wants to say goodbye by competing. To do this, he wants to do it by living bearably with the pain, once again, to star in what could be his last dance.
2023-11-15 17:13:27
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