Rafael Nadal still out of competition. The Balearic tennis player, current number 14 in the world, has announced that No will reappear at the Masters 1000 in Rome, and has not been part of the game on the ATP circuit since mid-January. A injury to the iliopsoas of his left leg It caused him to be eliminated in the second round of the last Australian Open and that he has been dropped since then: He has only been able to play four games in 2023.
To date, Nadal he has missed all the big dates of the clay court season: He was not in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Madrid either. “I am very sorry to announce that I will not be able to be in Rome. You all know how much it hurts me to miss another of the tournaments that have marked my professional and personal career for all the love and support of the Italian tifosi ”, he lamented through social networks.
“Despite noticing an improvement these last few daysthere are many months without having been able to train at a high level and the readaptation process has its times and I have no choice but to accept them and continue working”, sentenced Nadal in his statement. Finally, he will not have previous filming before the great objective of each and every one of his seasons: Roland Garros. The 14-time winner in Paris will defend his title at once, if he finally wins, in the event par excellence of his sports career: he would reappear for the first time in a tournament with matches in the best of five sets just after an injury .
In the last edition of the Masters 1000 in Rome (Nadal has won this tournament 10 times), the Spaniard finished off the American John Isner in the second round (6-3, 6-1) to say goodbye to the Foro Italico in eighth, at the hands of Canadian Denis Shapovalov (6-1, 5-7 and 6-2). Therefore, he only defended 90 points on Italian soil.
Right now, in Nadal’s locker there is only one victory this course: the 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 and 6-1 that he endorsed the British Jack Draper in the first round of Australia. In the rest of the meetings of the year, the Englishman Cameron Norrie and the Australian Alex de Miñaur in the United Cup (3-6, 6-3 and 6-4 in the first case and 3-6, 6-1 and 7- 5 in the second) and the American Mackenzie McDonald in Melbourne (6-4, 6-4 and 7-5) could with Nadal.
If Nadal finally disputes Roland Garros, he will do so in worse conditions than ever since he played the second Grand Slam of the course for the first time, back in 2005. The Spaniard would start as seeded fifteenth of the tournament in the draw, which would lead him to come across a rival as fearsome as the following just in round of 16: the Serbian Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, the Norwegian Casper Ruud, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas or the also Russian Andrey Rublev.
Therefore, Nadal would not be able to dodge the Top 4 in an early round of Roland Garros. Something that he did opt for in the case of having been able to be in Rome: a minimum qualification for the semifinals would have earned him to get among the 12 best in the world before arriving in Paris.
What would happen to the ranking of Nadal in the event that he also had to give up his contest in France It would be a major problem for him: he would fall out of the top 100 in the world, since he would only have 535 points in the standings. That sudden decline could also occur in the event of being eliminated soon at Roland Garros. Quite a setback for the Spaniard, who right now lives installed in a real sea of doubts due to his physical condition.
