At his press conference at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, the 22-time slam champion announced he will miss Roland Garros, take some time off afterward, and most likely finish his career in 2024.
Nadal opened the press conference with a statement in Spanish, expressing that his recovery since the Australian Open has not gone to plan which has made his Roland Garros participation impossible.
“I was even working as much as possible every single day for the last four months, have been very difficult months because we were not able to find the solution to the problem I had in Australia.”
“The real situation is I was not able to enjoy my diary of work. Since after the pandemic, my body was not able to hold the practices and to hold the diary of work in a good way, so I was not able to enjoy the practices and the competition because it was too many problems. Too many times having to stop for physical issues and too many days, going here practicing but with too much pain.”
“I need to stop for a while so my decision is to stop. I don’t know when I’m going to come back to the practice court but I’m going to stop for a while. Maybe two months, maybe one month and a half, maybe three months, maybe four months, I don’t know.”
“It’s the right thing to do for my body and for my personal happiness. I don’t want to put myself in a position to say one thing and then do another thing, but my goal or my ambition is to stop to give myself an opportunity to enjoy next year, that’s probably going to be my last year in a professional tour.”
“That’s my idea even that I can’t say a hundred percent it’s going to be like this, because you never know what can happen but my idea and my motivation is to enjoy and try to say goodbye of all tournaments that have been important for me in my tennis career during this year and just try to enjoy that. Being competitive and enjoying being on court, something that today is not possible.”
“I really believe that if I keep going now, I will not be able to make that happen. I don’t know if I stop if I will be able to make that happen but I think the chances are much higher if I stop.”
It is uncertain whether we will see Nadal on the court again in 2023 but it is clear that the 2024 season is his priority.
