The New Rafa Injury
Rafael Nadal has been affected by physical injuries again. He’s nursing a wrist injury, an injury to his left wrist and not to the right wrist that he suffered in 2014 or during the first four months of 2016 where he had had it taped. In the press conference he held to announce his decision, he said, ‘After every shot I hit, wrist hurt so much and I couldn’t hit well. I will not play before I have recovered entirely. (This is) one of the toughest press conferences in my career.’
He continued, ‘Every day was a little bit worse. We tried to do all the treatments possible. Every single day we spent a lot of hours here working so hard to try to play. I could play, but the thing is yesterday night I start to feel more and more pain, and today in the morning I feel that I could not move much the wrist. So I came here, I did MRI, and I did echography. Well, and the results are not positive. The real thing is not 100%, you know. It’s not broken, but if I keep playing gonna be broked next couple of days. Every day the image is a little bit worse. When I am coming to Roland Garros, I am coming thinking about winning the tournament. To win the tournament I need five more matches, and the doctor says that’s 100% impossible. That gonna be 100% broked. I cannot say in English because I don’t know exactly the name. I think it is the sheath of the tendon.’
It all started in Madrid during his tough match against Joao Sousa. Nadal, who won that match against Sousa, went on to explain that he took medical help in his match against Andy Murray. ‘I played with mesotherapy to sleep a little bit the place and to have less pain, and worked because I could play. Then that was Saturday. On Sunday, I was in Barcelona. I spent all day there doing MRI and echography and all the tests, and the doctor told me that there is nothing really bad. So I accept that, and I wanted to go to Rome and I went to Rome. I played only with anti-inflammatories. So I could play well. I played three matches and was okay. But when I come back to Mallorca I felt a little bit more. And as I say before, when I arrived here, every day is worse. I cannot play with my forehand. At the moment I do not need any surgery, but If I keep playing, yes,’
Rafa elaborated.
Wimbledon is only a month away, and Nadal assured he and his team will work hard to be ready for that tournament. He said, ‘For the moment, I need a couple of weeks with that, you know, with the immobilization. Then we’re gonna do the treatment, and we hope the treatment works well. We expect to recover quick, to be ready for Wimbledon, no? But at this moment, you know, it’s not a moment to talk about that. It’s just a moment to go day by day, to work hard. I hope to have a fast recovery.’
But at the moment, understandably, Rafa’s not happy about his withdrawal from the tournament where he’s been the most successful. ‘For nine times in my career I have been able to be healthy here and to win this tournament. Now is a tough moment, but is not the end. I feel myself with the right motivation and the right energy to be back in Roland Garros the next couple of years, and I really hope to keep having my chances in the future,’ he admitted emotionally.
There is a little bit optimism within Rafa, as there are some doubts. He said, ‘It’s not that serious. Everyone seems to think that it will take a couple of weeks, perhaps a month for things to improve, and the issue will be resolved. There is a solution. It’s not like when I had issues with my knee, because there we really couldn’t see the end of the tunnel here. There is a diagnosis; there is a treatment; there is a time frame for immobilization. Of course medicine is not mathematics. You can’t merely rely on the dates that your treatment is supposed to end. Maybe I’ll be three months off the circuit.’
In theory, Nadal should play his next tournament at Queen’s that starts on 13th June. However there are high chances of not seeing him play any event on grass. Does this mean that this is another 2009 in the making?