Tag: Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal suffered his first defeat on his return to tennis after injury as he fell 7-5, 6-1 against Alex de Minaur on Wednesday in the Barcelona Open second round.

The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back on court this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well but eventually crumbled against the hard-working world number 11 from Australia.

Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of the 2023 season, is hoping to compete at the French Open in May where he is the record 14-time champion.

“On a personal level, for what is to come, the 6-1 in the second set is what had to happen today,” said Nadal, who explained he did not want to push himself too far.

“That’s the way I need to proceed today, to give me a chance to compete at Roland Garros,” he added.

“I’ll try to take a step further in Madrid, then in Rome, and if, in any tournament it’s worth going out there to give everything and die, it’s in Paris.”

The Spaniard, who has won the Barcelona clay-court title on 12 occasions, had eased past Flavio Cobolli on Tuesday in his first ATP Tour match since January, but said he was not favourite against De Minaur who has now won his last two clashes against the former world number one.

It proved a far tougher challenge and despite showing flashes of his supreme quality on the court named after him, Nadal came up short in what he said he believes is his final appearance at the tournament.

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The Australian broke in the first game and tested Nadal with a series of brilliant drop shots which Rafael Nadal could not reach.

However, Nadal hit back with a break of his own in the sixth game and consolidated with a fizzing backhand for a 4-3 lead.

De Minaur broke to love to take a 6-5 lead as Nadal went wide and sealed the first set when the Spaniard pushed a shot into the net, winning the final 10 points as Nadal started to struggle.

The 25-year-old Australian broke for a 2-1 lead in the second set when Nadal could not return a powerful passing shot, and secured another break for 4-1.

De Minaur wrapped up his emphatic second set performance with a third break when Nadal went long.

It marked what Rafael Nadal said was “realistically” his final appearance at a tournament he loves.

“I had the chance to say goodbye here on court and that means a lot for me,” he added.

“A week ago I felt I was not able to play any more at this event, that would be painful, but at least I played and now it’s the moment to keep going.”

Monte Carlo Masters champion Stefanos Tsitsipas faces Sebastian Ofner later Wednesday in the second round of the Barcelona Open.

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Tennis superstar Rafael Nadal said Monday that returning to action at the Barcelona Open is a “gift” and he wants to enjoy every moment of what he expects to be the last year of his career.

The 22-time Grand Slam winner has not played an ATP Tour match since January, when he felt a hip injury flare up at the Brisbane International.

Nadal, who missed virtually all of the 2023 season, will face Italian Flavio Cobolli on Tuesday in the first round on the centre-court in Barcelona which bears his own name.

The 37-year-old withdrew from the Monte Carlo Masters earlier in April and is hoping to compete at Roland Garros in May, where he is a record 14-time champion.

“More than lamenting where I wasn’t able to be, I prefer to be happy that I am here,” Nadal told a news conference.

“On a personal level it is a gift for me to be in Barcelona. I’m taking this as my last year and I want to enjoy every moment.”

Rafael Nadal, the record 12-time Barcelona Open winner, has not played a match on clay since winning the French Open in 2022.

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Despite viewing 2024 as his final year as a professional, the veteran said he was not setting any deadline for retirement.

“We’ll keep going forward until I have the feeling that it’s not worth it,” continued Nadal.

“I’m not putting a deadline on that, but as I’ve said, in the end life marks your path for you.”

The Barcelona Open draw had put Rafael Nadal on a collision course with Spanish compatriot Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals but the 20-year-old was forced to withdraw Sunday because of fitness concerns.

“Let’s hope he recovers well and quickly, it’s bad for the tournament because he’s the top seed,” said Nadal.

“I’m not in a position to be thinking about the semi-finals.”

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Rafael Nadal said it will be “a joy” to return to action for the first time since January when he takes part in the Barcelona Open next week where he is a 12-time champion.

The 22-time Grand Slam winner has played just once, in an exhibition match, since he felt a hip injury flare-up during a quarter-final defeat by Jordan Thompson in Brisbane on the eve of the Australian Open.

“I’m happy to be here, of course, Barcelona is a place that has brought me a great deal of joy, and where I have spent periods of my life,” said Nadal at Saturday’s draw ceremony.

Nadal will play 63rd-ranked Flavio Cobolli of Italy in his opening match.

Nadal, who turns 38 in June, will be looking for a problem-free return as he builds towards seeking a record-extending 15th French Open title.

The former world number one has seen his ranking slip to 646 after missing all of the 2023 season following the Australian Open.

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“Over the last two years I’ve had very few days on tour, so spending days here, seeing people, being able to practise with players is a joy,” added Nadal.

“I’m keen to carry on. The tournament has some incredible players.”

The 2022 and 2023 Barcelona champion Carlos Alcaraz will begin his clay-court campaign after missing the Monte Carlo Masters due to a right arm injury.

World number three Alcaraz is the top seed and has a bye in the first round before facing either China’s Zhang Zhizhen or Luca Van Assche of France.

Nadal has never played Cobolli, 16 years his junior. If he gets past him, he will face the tougher task of 11th-ranked Australian Alex de Minaur in the second round.

There is the prospect of a tantalising semi-final meeting with Alcaraz on the centre court which now bears Nadal’s name.

On Saturday afternoon, Nadal trained with sixth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia and appeared to move smoothly around the court.

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Rafael Nadal is set to make his return to the ATP Tour on the clay courts of Monte Carlo next month, tournament organisers announced on Tuesday.

“You never know what he’s going to do, but I saw him training with his coaches on a private court… and I had the impression I was listening to a wild beast. He hits like he’s never hit before,” said tournament director David Massey at a press conference in Paris.

“He felt some discomfort, so he was scared and decided not to play at Indian Wells, but the tests he underwent showed nothing,” he added.

Rafael Nadal, with 22 Grand Slam titles to his name, has dropped to 652nd in the ATP rankings this week and used a protected ranking of ninth to get into the main draw in Monte Carlo, the first clay-court Masters 1000 event of the 2024 season.

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The clay specialist has won the tournament 11 times in his career but since his last victory in 2018, he fell at the semi-finals in 2019, the quarters in 2021 and missed the 2020, 2022 and 2023 editions.

“We sent him two boxes of balls to Mallorca so that he could practise (with the balls that will be used in the tournament),” said Massey.

Nadal missed almost all of the 2023 season with abdominal and other injuries and has played only the Brisbane International this season, where he suffered a flare-up of a hip injury.

The 37-year-old Spaniard was set to make his comeback at the Indian Wells Masters but pulled out of the hard-court event last week without playing a point.

The bombshell decision came four days after he lost a Las Vegas exhibition to compatriot and world number two Carlos Alcaraz.

The Monte Carlo Masters begins on April 7 and marks the beginning of the clay-court season where Rafael Nadal may well play his last-ever French Open, a Grand Slam event he has won a record 14 times.

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Rafael Nadal on Wednesday hailed longtime rival Novak Djokovic as the best player in the history of the sport.

“The numbers say yes, for me yes (he is the best in history),” Rafael Nadal said in an interview with El Objective de La Sexta when asked, “who is the best?”

Novak Djokovic has 24 Grand Slam titles having surpassed Nadal’s 22 when he captured last year’s French Open.

Despite that success, the controversial world number one from Serbia still struggles to translate his on-court triumphs into off-court popularity.

“The image he projects is worse than he really is; I think he’s a good person,” added Nadal.

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“There are moments of frustration. Novak breaks his racquet, but the next point he is ready to play at 100% again and it is the best I have ever seen.”

Nadal, 37, has been battling injury and missed virtually all of 2023. He was hurt again last month before sitting out the Australian Open.

With his career winding down, Nadal hailed compatriot and heir Carlos Alcaraz who is already a two-time major winner at the age of 20.

“Carlos has an incredible level of tennis, he is a super complete player in every sense,” said Nadal.

“I don’t see weaknesses in him like the ones I had at his age. He has all the ingredients to have an incredible career.”

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Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal’s first match back after a 12-month injury layoff ended in defeat when he and doubles partner Marc Lopez went down to Australian pair Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell on Sunday.

The Australian duo were too consistent, winning their Brisbane International first-round match 6-4, 6-4 on Pat Rafter Arena.

Nadal looked sharp on the court and appeared to have no issues with his movement after the long lay-off for a hip problem.

He takes to the singles court on Tuesday against former US Open champion Dominic Thiem of Austria.

Prior to the match, Rafael Nadal left the door ajar to continue after the 2024 season but conceded there was “a high percentage” that he was on his last trip as a player to Australia.

Speaking ahead of his comeback from a 12-month injury absence at the season-opening Brisbane International, the 37-year-old Spaniard said he did not know for sure what the future held.

“The problem about saying that’s going to be my last season is I can’t predict what’s going on 100 percent in the future,” he said.

“That’s why I say ‘probably’. It’s obvious it’s a high percentage that it’s going to be my last time playing here in Australia.

“But if I am here next year, don’t tell me, ‘You said it was going to be your last season’, because I didn’t say it.

“You never know what’s going on, you know? I can’t predict how I’m going to be in the next six months. I can’t predict if my body will allow me to enjoy tennis as much as I enjoyed the past 20 years.

“It’s not an easy decision, but I know inside myself that it is a high percentage that it’s going to be my last one.”

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The 22-time Grand Slam champion said that the last year, with surgery for a hip injury, had been tough and he contemplated quitting at one point during his recovery.

But he said he had never lost his love for the sport, which motivated him to keep going.

“Of course I was asking myself that (about retirement), but at some point I decided to keep going. I had the determination to keep going.”

Rafael Nadal, who has been sidelined since injuring his hip at the 2023 Australian Open, begins his singles comeback against a qualifier in the first round in Brisbane.

He will make a low-key return later Sunday when he plays doubles.

Asked whether he identified with Naomi Osaka, who on Saturday admitted she had fallen out of love with tennis during her break from the tour, Nadal said that was not the case for him.

“She got tired or lost a little bit of motivation for the game,” he said.

“That never happened to me. I had to be away because my body was not able to keep going.”

Nadal said the long absence had allowed his body to heal and he no longer woke up every morning in pain, but he had no expectations heading into the new season and would take it week by week.

“Competing is different than practising, but in terms of practising with the guys here, I am quite happy because I feel competitive against the players that I played in practice,” he said.

“Of course, I don’t have the expectations that I used to have in the past.

“It’s obvious, no? It’s one year (away). It’s surgery. For me, it is a little bit unpredictable how things are going to be.”

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Andy Murray conceded Saturday he longed for the chance to play again on the big stage against superstars Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

Speaking ahead of the season-opening Brisbane International, the 36-year-old said he missed the days when he regularly met Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer at the business end of major tournaments.

Andy Murray matched it with the big three for a decade between 2006-16 before a run of injuries resulted in time off court and a slide in his ranking.

While the others powered on to title after title, the Scotsman, now ranked 42, was forced to battle his way back, his career never reaching its former heights.

The last time Andy Murray met Nadal was in the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters in 2016 and while he played Novak Djokovic in the Madrid Masters last year, he had not met him since 2017 before that.

“Obviously I would like the opportunity to play against them again, ideally in the latter stages of big tournaments,” Murray said.

“That’s something that obviously I’ve missed, that feeling, not had that opportunity really.

“If I get the opportunity to practise with them, I still really, really enjoy that.

“It does bring back some good memories, but ideally, I’d want to be doing that in the tournaments, not in the first rounds.”

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Murray has been practising with Nadal in Brisbane as the Spaniard makes his comeback after almost 12 months away with injury.

He said Rafael Nadal was moving well and showing no signs of the hip injury that forced him off tour after the 2023 Australian Open.

Murray also said Nadal appeared to have made only minor changes to his game in his time away from the tour.

“His second serve is significantly harder than what he did earlier in his career,” Murray said.

“But yeah, the rest of the game, unless there’s a physical issue, there’s not really much reason for him to make huge changes to that — it’s been pretty successful.

“When he’s fit and healthy, that game style is what has worked really, really well for him, looking for his forehand, trying to dominate with that shot.

“If he wants to be successful in the future, that’s what he should be looking to do. That’s how he was trying to play today.”

Murray takes on second-seeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the first round, a rematch of the 2013 Brisbane International final which Murray won in two close sets.

Dimitrov won their last encounter at this year’s US Open.

“I need to play really well, certainly much better than there, if I want to get through it,” Andy Murray said.

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Rafael Nadal on Thursday withdrew from the French Open because his hip injury has not healed and said he expects 2024 to be his final year in professional tennis.

“It’s not a decision I’m taking, it’s a decision my body is taking,” said the 36-year-old Spanish player, who has played at the claycourt major every year since 2005 and won it 14 times.

Rafael Nadal said he was taking a few months off, meaning he will also definitely miss Wimbledon and most likely the US Open, before starting to play again.

And he said next year would bring down the curtain on a career that has so far produced 22 Grand Slam singles titles.

“It’s probably going to be my last year on the professional tour, I can’t say this 100 percent because you never know what’s going to happen,” he told a news conference.

“The injury I suffered in Australia has not healed as we hoped.

“Roland Garros became impossible. I will not be there after many years, with everything that (tournament) means to me.”

Rafael Nadal said he will not set a date for his return, but said the Davis Cup in November could be a potential target.

The former world number one has not played since the Australian Open in January where he picked up a hip injury in a shock second round loss to Mackenzie McDonald of the United States.

He was expected to recover inside six weeks, comfortably in time for the claycourt season and to launch an assault on a record-extending 15th title at Roland Garros.

However, with his 37th birthday little over two weeks away and having skipped Masters events in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, Nadal appears to be facing a final battle he cannot win.

After a career plagued by knee, wrist and foot injuries in particular, the alarm bells have been ringing ever louder over the last year.

Nadal’s undefeated start to 2022, which saw him pick up a second Australian Open title, ended with a chest injury at Indian Wells.

“It feels like a needle all the time inside,” he admitted.

He swept to a 14th French Open in June but only after revealing he had required daily pain-killing injections in his foot, a consequence of suffering from Mueller-Weiss Syndrome, a rare degenerative condition.

“I played with no feeling in the foot, with a pain-killing injection in the nerve. The foot was asleep, and that’s why I was able to play,” he said at the time in Paris.

He added that he would undergo a treatment which would involve burning the nerves in his foot to permanently dull the pain.

Weeks later, his dream of a third Wimbledon title ended in a semi-final withdrawal due to an abdominal strain.

Rafael Nadal’s lengthy absence this year has also seen him drop out of the world’s top 10 for the first time in 18 years.

His record at the French Open is unlikely ever to be broken.

Since his 2005 championship winning debut, he has racked up 112 wins and only been defeated three times.

Two of those losses came against great rival Novak Djokovic in 2015 and 2021. The other was to Robin Soderling in 2009.

Djokovic, who shares the men’s record of 22 Slams with Nadal, will start as French Open favourite this year alongside world number one Carlos Alcaraz who is desperate not to see his Spanish compatriot throw in the towel.

“Let’s hope he continues to play for a long time and that we can enjoy his tennis,” said Alcaraz, the 20-year-old heir apparent to Nadal’s throne.

MADRID: Rafael Nadal said Thursday he will miss next week’s Madrid Masters as he continues to struggle to recover from a hip injury, dealing a significant blow to his French Open preparations.

“For the moment I’ve missed Monte Carlo and Barcelona. And unfortunately I won’t be able to be in Madrid either,” Nadal said on Instagram.

“The injury still hasn’t healed,” he added.

The 36-year-old Spaniard has not played since losing in the second round of the Australian Open in January.

Nadal is hoping for a record-extending 15th French Open title at Roland Garros in May, but his hip flexor problem he suffered in Melbourne has badly disrupted his run up to the tournament.

The 22-time Grand Slam champion — he shares the men’s record with Novak Djokovic — had originally thought he would be out for up to two months.

He pulled out of hard-court tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami, with his sights set on a return at the start of the clay-court season, but it did not come to fruition.

“In principle it was supposed to be a recovery period of six to eight weeks and now we’re around 14,” said Nadal.

“The reality is that the situation is not what we would have hoped for. All medical indications have been followed, but the healing has not gone as they told us initially and we find ourselves in a difficult situation.”

Nadal said he and his team have decided to try a different treatment and see if things improve, but that he was not setting a deadline for his comeback.

“I can’t work on what I need to compete. I was training but a few days ago we decided to change course a bit, to try another treatment and see if things improve to try to get to what comes next.”

“I can’t give deadlines because if I knew I would tell you, but I don’t know,” he added. “This is how things are now.”

Nadal’s fitness problems have become an increasing issue since he won his 14th French Open crown last year.

At Wimbledon last summer he was forced to withdraw from his semi-final because of an abdominal injury.

Last month he dropped out of the top 10 for the first time since 2005, and is currently ranked 14th.

The French Open starts on May 28, with Nadal now in a race against time to be fit for the Rome Masters — the last major tune-up event before Roland Garros.

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MONTE CARLO: Rafael Nadal’s preparation for a tilt at a record-extending 15th French Open title suffered a further blow when he announced Friday his withdrawal from the ATP Barcelona tournament.

The 36-year-old Spaniard said he had still not recovered full fitness from the hip flexor injury he sustained in the Australian Open in January and which saw him miss this week’s Monte Carlo Open.

“I am still not ready and so I continue my preparation process for the return to competition,” he tweeted.

The Barcelona tournament starts on Saturday and the French Open on May 28.

Nadal said it hurt him to miss Barcelona.

“Barcelona is a special tournament for me because it is my club by adoption and because playing at home is always a unique feeling,” he said.

The 22-time Grand Slam singles champion — he shares the record with Novak Djokovic — had originally thought he would be out for up to two months.

He pulled out of hard-court tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami, with his sights set on a return at the start of the clay court season.

His fitness problems have become an increasing issue since he won his 14th French Open crown last year.

He eased to victory against Casper Ruud despite having his troublesome left foot anaesthesised to counter the pain — he was diagnosed with Müller-Weiss syndrome aged 18.

He subsequently withdrew from his Wimbledon semi-final due to an abdominal injury.

His long absence from the circuit this time round has seen him drop out of the top 10 for the first time since April 2005 — he is presently ranked 15th.

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