Rafael Nadal: this is the record of his setbacks, will he come back stronger?

The microtear detected in a muscle near the hip, where he felt the discomfort in last Thursday's match against the Australian Jordan Thompson in the Brisbane tournament represents a new setback, the umpteenth, in the route planned by Rafael Nadal.

The winner of twenty-two Grand Slams has already made public his resignation from playing the first major of the season, the Australian Open which he has won twice, the last in 2022.
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How painful!

The Spaniard has not finished giving continuity to his set-up, achieving physical stability to face this new stage in his career with a certain normality, calmly, in an Olympic year that, at 37 years old, may be his last. on the professional circuit as announced months ago.

The good feelings shown in Brisbane this week suddenly collapsed in the duel against Thompson.

Nadal enjoyed an encouraging, spectacular performance in the matches against the Austrian Dominic Thiem first and before Jason Kubler later. He ran into Thompson, who demanded more. He won the match, three match points. But the oceanic resisted, at a great level.

He pushed Nadal to the limit, who finished the match with hip pain, assisted by the court physiotherapist, defeated in three sets and melted after more than three hours on the court.

But, especially, Nadal left worried, worried about the possibility of a relapse. Take a step back. He asked for time and that the ailment was only an overload, something muscular.

He left Brisbane to Melbourne where he has undergone tests to accurately detect the ailment. And if everything went well, maintain the planned roadmap and continue with the plan to face the set-up for the first Grand Slam of the season.

It hasn't been like that. Although relieved that it was not a relapse, the tests have detected a microtear, a small break that requires treatment.

Nadal will leave Australia. He will return to Spain to put yourself in the hands of your doctor and start again. Nadal is used to getting up again and again. Often conditioned by physical setbacks, the one suffered in Brisbane is the umpteenth.

The best Spanish athlete ever has lived with ailments in his body, which has had to deal with around twenty injuries throughout his career that have required a respectable recovery time and that have kept him away from major events, which have kept aside for more or less time.

Big drop

The Australian Open that begins in a week will be the sixteenth Grand Slam that the 37-year-old tennis player from Manacor has stopped playing due to injury. It could have been the last time Nadal played in the Melbourne Park in his career, a tournament that the Spaniard has not been able to play throughout his career with the desired regularity.

In a campaign full of incentives but also adapted for a possible and definitive farewell, the physical setback suffered in Brisbane alters the roadmap set by him and his team.

After 349 days without competing, the Spanish tennis player had planned a gradual and measured reunion with the circuit. After Brisbane, which he played for the second time in his career, came the Australian Open. It won't be the same anymore. It remains to be seen, in the air, when the return of the twenty-two Grand Slam winner who measures his movements, his journey, his steps in the competition to the maximum.

The physical setback also leaves the American Masters 1000 up in the air, Indian Wells and Miami, set for March, when he has also been announced to play an exhibition alongside Carlos Alcaraz, next March 3, in Las Vegas. Before, in February, it establishes the calendar full of events that the Balearic Islands, if it is able, will face as they arrive, day by day, without excessive notice. Paris is the great dream of the Spanish tennis player in 2024.

The earth

. That's where she has her expectations placed. In Roland Garros and later, the Olympic Games. Previously, the Barcelona tournament, the Count of Godóannounced that the Manacor player would be part of the tournament poster.

As part of the clay season itinerary includes the Monte Carlo Masters 1000, the Madrid Masters 1000, the Rome tournament, and events prior to the second major of the course.

In the midst of the countdown and with the new recovery as the only, primary and priority objective, Rafael Nadal's path will go day by day, tournament by tournament.
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