Rafa Nadal’s Comeback: Inside His Recovery, Training, and Future Career

Rafa Nadal had surgery on June 2. He underwent an arthroscopic intervention to check the left psoas injury that kept him out of competition and to regularize the labrum of his left hip, in which he had old discomfort. Going through the operating room was more complicated than expected. After him, while she was on vacation, she spent a month and a half recovering. At the end of August, she started training very lightly, two days a week for twenty minutes. In constant contact with the doctors, her intensity increased with the passing of the sessions, although in a conservative way. Until last week, when the winner of 20 Grand Slams was training in Kuwait “at a very high level”, as Ivan Ljubicic revealed after a conversation with Arthur Fils, who served as a sparring partner.

The details of these last months in Nadal’s life have been revealed by his coach, Carlos Moyá, in an interview for the official ATP website. “Once they opened and saw what was there, it was more delicate than initially thought. Look, he had tests and MRIs… it seems that what he had was not well seen and the recovery time has been longer than expected,” he says, going back to the time of the operation. “Now he is practically ready to go to Australia to try it. Obviously, he knows that right now he is still not at his best level, but that little by little he will acquire it. These days in Kuwait we have trained with Fils, and the truth is that it was very good, much better than he could have expected. Rafa arrived there thinking that he was not going to be competitive, that he was not going to be up to the task and he leaves convinced that it may be that he is, “he explains, already in the last few days.

Until the good feelings in Kuwait, the road has been long and hard. “Has there been any moment during the entire process when you thought you would not return?” Moyá is asked. “Yes,” he answers forcefully. “When we start and have been playing for a month and a half or two, and we see that the progression is very slow… It has not been a bed of roses, far from it. It has been a quite twisty and winding road, with many curves. The useful life of an elite athlete has its expiration date and he is approaching it. One is never aware of when that moment is, it rarely is. And I think that in that aspect we have all had our doubts that he could ever go to Australia, and he was the first. I have had them in a certain part of the process, in certain stages. I had the feeling that it could be the end, without having the option to play again. “It has been the most complicated moment I have experienced with him,” he says sincerely.

Competitiveness, Roland Garros and future

Nadal has not played a match, precisely, since the last Australian Open, when he lost against Mackenzie McDonald weighed down by his problems. After a year without stepping on the court officially, what worries Moyá most is the assimilation of the loads of matches that Rafa’s body may have. He went from training to competing. “It is impossible to have the same conditions in training as in a game. Play the best of five sets, win, rest, return to the court two days later… That is the doubt I have right now, especially for a Grand Slam. But we have time. If the Australian Open started tomorrow, it would be a real fear. There is still a month left, a tournament before in Brisbane, demanding training… I think all of this will put him in a position to be able to endure it,” he elaborates in that sense.

In 2024, Roland Garros will continue to be one of the main goals for Nadal. “It has always been his fetish tournament and in this case nothing changes. It is also clear that there are six months left, we have to see how he gets there, we have to see the games he has played, his level, his competitiveness. There are many unknowns that time will clear up,” says Moyá, who, like Rafa, does not close the doors to the Spaniard’s career continuing beyond next season. “He doesn’t want to close the door. If everything goes well, and he endures, why not continue? If he enjoys it, has a good time and it’s what he likes to do, why not? But there are too many unknowns right now to say where we will be in a year,” he completes. At the moment, Nadal is in Mallorca before traveling to Brisbane (the tournament is from December 31 to January 7), where his return will be completed.

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2023-12-17 08:24:27
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