WIMBLEDON, England – Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam champion, has retired from his semi-final match against Nick Kyrgios scheduled for Friday.
“I think I can’t win two games in these circumstances,” he said. “I can’t serve.”
Nadal made the announcement at a press conference shortly after 2pm East in the All England Club’s main press conference room, explaining that he was retiring due to a tear in his abdominal muscle.
“I was all day thinking about the decision,” he said. “I don’t think it makes sense to go there.”
“I’m very sad,” he said.
Nadal, who entered the tournament halfway through a Grand Slam and worried about his chronically injured foot, said he began to feel pain in his abdomen about a week ago. The pain got worse and it became clear he had probably broken his muscle early in his five-set win over Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
In that game, Nadal became a medical timeout in the second set. From the stands, his father and other members of his family asked him to stop playing instead of suffering more injuries, but Nadal ignored his requests and got one of the most notable comeback victories of a career that has seen many.
After the match, Nadal warned that he might not be able to play in the semi-finals and that he planned to have an examination to determine the extent of the injury.
“The decision in the end – all the decisions – is the player’s decision, but at the same time I need to know different opinions and I have to check everything in the right way, right? That’s even more important than winning Wimbledon, that’s health, “he said. .
The withdrawal – the first of a Wimbledon semifinal in the modern era of tennis – was especially disappointing because the Christmas game had improved with each game, which he highlighted on Thursday and after his victory over Fritz, all and that this was his first turf tournament in three. years.
“I’m in the semifinals, so I’m playing really well the last few days, especially yesterday, at the start of the game, playing at a very, very high level,” he said.
With Christmas retiring, Kyrgios gets a pass to his first individual Grand Slam final. Kyrgios, 27, had never made a Grand Slam singles semifinal before during a controversial career.
“Different players, different personalities,” Kyrgios wrote about Christmas in an Instagram post after the announcement. “@rafaelnadal I hope your recovery goes well and we all hope to see you soon 🗣🙏🏽 until next time.”
Nadal had won the first two Grand Slam events of the year, the Australian Open and the French Open. The win over Fritz left him with just nine Grand Slam wins of the calendar year, something no male player has achieved since Rod Laver in 1969.
The withdrawal is the last time for a tournament that has followed a rocky path since April, when organizers announced they would ban Russian and Belarusian players from competing due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Organizers took the step amid intense pressure from the British government and the royal family, which is closely linked to the tournament and did not want Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, to be photographed doing her traditional duty of handing out a trophy to a Russian or Belarusian champion.
No tournament outside of Britain, including the US Open, followed Wimbledon’s example. The decision also sparked a battle with the men’s and women’s professional tours, which decided not to award any ranking points for Wimbledon victories, making the sport’s most prestigious tournament a kind of exhibition.
The situation became even more uncomfortable on Thursday when Elena Rybakina, who was born and raised in Russia but began representing Kazakhstan four years ago after her tennis federation offered to fund her development, qualified for the women’s final.
On Thursday evening, however, everything seemed to pale in comparison to the disappointment that Nadal could not come out on the court for his clash with Kyrgios and, if he had prevailed, a possible 60th match against Novak Djokovic.
Nadal said the injury had caused discomfort for several days, but the pain became severe in the fifth game of the match as he led 3-1. It got even worse two games later, when Fritz broke the Christmas service to advance.
Nadal said he then changed his way of serving, slowing down and changing what is usually a violent twisting motion, the torque of his torso and the power of his legs, to serve at about 120 miles per hour. For long segments of the match, Nadal struggled to serve three digits.
Still, he resisted his family’s pleas for him to resign, wanting to finish what he started. He defended that decision on Thursday although he eventually deprived the tournament of one of its semifinals.
He said it as the right decision “because I won the match. I finished the match. I won the match. I did the things I felt in every moment. “
However, his willingness to risk his health changed on Thursday, he said, when he saw and felt the scope of the tear. He reasoned that winning two more games would be impossible and that trying would only make the injury worse and he would miss more games this summer.
“Very harsh circumstances,” he said squeezing his lips with that slight tilt of his head he makes so many times when he transmits unfortunate news.
He said he couldn’t compete for at least three or four weeks, but that he could start hitting from the baseline in just a week, and then start serving when he can do so without hassle. This is important for Christmas, as your chronically injured foot often becomes a problem when you don’t play for long periods. You can start serving at some point after that, assuming you can play without pain.
This schedule, he said, will not interfere with his normal summer schedule, which usually includes hard track tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati before the start of the U.S. Open in late August.
From now on, Djokovic will not be able to play in the US Open due to his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Currently, US policy prohibits the entry into the country of unvaccinated foreigners.
In recent years, Djokovic has become obsessed with finishing his career with more individual Grand Slam titles. He started the year tied with Nadal and Roger Federer at 20 years old.
Nadal won the first two Grand Slams of the year to advance in a race he said he cared little about, which was a bit difficult to understand given how competitive he is on the track.
“As always, the most important thing is happiness more than any title, even though everyone knows the great effort I put into being here,” he said.
He also said Thursday night that he never considered retiring to end his chance for the Grand Slam of the calendar year, a pursuit that Djokovic has also become obsessed with and that came to a match of getting the year past when Christmas was missed the second half of the year. because of his sick foot.
“I never thought about the calendar,” he said. “I thought about my daily happiness.”