His body couldn’t take it. Rafael Nadal has finally decided to give up playing the semifinals of Wimbledon. The Balearic tennis player suffered a fissure in his abs in the quarterfinal match against Taylor Fritz from which he has not recovered in time to face tomorrow Nick Kyrgios. “It makes no sense for me to play. It is very sad to communicate this,” she has assured.
The Balearic tennis player was testing in the morning the possibility of continuing in competition. He did a light training with his trainer Marc López, but finally decided with his entire team to resign due to the seven-millimeter tear that was detected in his abdominal during the check-up that was carried out in a London hospital that morning.
“It is not easy to leave Wimbledon. I must respect myself and not play if I am not at my level. I cannot risk more and expose myself to staying three or four months out of the competition & rdquor ;, Nadal argued about his forced abandonment. The fissure in his abdomen prevented him from serving comfortably. In fact, against Fritz he improvised a serve with his arm a little more open to avoid the whiplash he felt when executing the blow. He now doesn’t see himself capable of holding the same against Kyrgios for an entire match. Somehow, he responds to the request of his father who urged him in the same quarterfinal match to leave.
“I have to respect myself and not play if I’m not at my level. I can’t risk more and expose myself to staying three or four months out of the competition”
Rafael Nadal
“I don’t see myself winning two games like that. I can’t do the normal movement to serve. But I’ve always said that the most important thing is happiness and health. It saddens me. I didn’t want to retire in the middle of a game, I found a way to finish it , but I have now made the decision thinking about my future,” he added.
The tennis player from Manacor explained that until the quarter-final match he had the injury under control, which started last week. However, now the wound has become great. “I think I will be out for three or four weeks,” he has pointed out.
Kyrgios is now through to the final at the English tournament and Nadal has particularly regretted the withdrawal because he felt he was playing well. “I saw myself with options to compete well for the title.”
15th withdrawal
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The withdrawal will not cause Nadal any harm in terms of points since the ATP decided that the English tournament would not award any in response to the boycott suffered by Russian tennis players.
This will be the 15th time Nadal has withdrawn from a tennis tournament since 2005 and the fourth time at a Grand Slam. Nadal left in 2016 at Roland Garros due to a left wrist injury and in 2018, first in Australia due to an iliopsoas injury in his right leg and, later, in the US Open, with problems in his right knee.