The longest injury of Rafa Nadal's career: this is the history of his physical ordeal

Rafa Nadal steps away from tennis because his body has told him enough. Four months ago, on January 18, he lost in the second round of the Australian Open in three sets against the American Mackenzie McDonald.. A pain in the hip made him finish the game in tears. The pain was recognizable because the manacorí has accumulated an ordeal of injuries that make his body understand. He has had them on his wrists, elbow, back, hip, knee and foot.

That injury in Australia to the iliopsoas had a six-week recovery period that has now become indefinite. Never has a physical ailment kept him off the slopes for so long.

To find the longest recovery precedent, you have to go back to 2012. Nadal fell in the second round of Wimbledon against world number 100, Lukas Rosol, a surprising defeat that hid an injury: a ruptured patellar tendon in his left knee. The following eight months also remained on the grass of the All England Club, which separated him from the London Games, the US Open and the Australian Open.

It was not the first injury for the tennis player. In 2003 he was out for a month due to a fissure in his right elbow and in 2004 he missed Roland Garros for the first time in his career.. The rupture of the scaphoid in his left foot kept him out of the circuit for four months and also deprived him of Wimbledon.

The following year, 2005, an ailment appeared that has come and gone several times throughout his career: Müller-Weiss Syndrome, a congenital lesion in his left foot that he has had to drag and that has even changed him. the footprint. He was out for five months…

Until 2008, the Spaniard had no ailments and closed a magical season in which he chained victories at Roland Garros and Wimbledon against Roger Federer with gold at the Beijing Games.

without stopping to win

In 2009 the tendonitis would be in both knees and would be accompanied by an abdominal tear and led him to fall in the round of 16 at Roland Garros with Soderling and miss Wimbledon. A year later he withdrew from the Australian Open quarterfinal against Andy Murray due to right knee problems.. Of course, in a month and a half he surpassed it and won Djokovic in Paris, London and the USA Open.

A detachment of the right wrist sheath forced him to stop for three months in 2014 after being defeated at Wimbledon by Kyrgios. Two years later, the same inflammation appeared, this time in the right wrist, which forced him to leave Roland Garros in the third round and, after two and a half months of recovery, suffered again at the Rio Games and lost the medal of bronze.

In 2018, the ailment that today has forced him to make a hiatus that seems definitive in his career appears for the first time.. In the round of 16 of the Australian Open he felt a puncture in the iliac psoas that made him leave. Two and a half months of recovery and, at the end of the season, another abdominal injury appeared that kept him from Paris.

Since 2021, injuries have been a constant in the Mallorcan's seasons. It took him five months to live with Müller-Weiss Syndrome after losing the Roland Garros semifinal with Djokovic and in 2023, this time at Wimbledon, he was left at the gates of the final against Kyrgios. After three months, a cracked rib in Indian Wells, where he beat Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinals and fell to Taylor Fritz, sent him to the infirmary for another month and a half.

The iliopsoas injury last January in Australia may be the last for Nadal.