Nadal returns home and his plan was to play again in Rotterdam

With the beating of his very hard match against Stefanos Tsitsipas still in the body and the pain in the soul for the defeat in a match that he totally controlled in the first two sets and got away with three errors in the tiebreaker of the third, Rafa Nadal woke up this Thursday still in Melbourne, from where he planned to leave at night for Manacor. The Balearic went through the tournament and posed next to a mural with his face painted around the John Cain Arena entrance by local street artist Paink, who has portrayed other players such as Osaka, Djokovic, Serena Williams and Barty. You will now rest at home for a few days before planning your next schedule and returning to workouts.

Nadal entered the ATP 500 in Rotterdam (on hard court), as did Medvedev, Rublev, Berrettini, Monfils, Shapovalov, Bautista and Carreño, among other figures. That would be, in principle, the scene of his return from March 1 to 7. And then your roadmap could go through Miami, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Rome, before facing Roland Garros, with the doubt whether he will accept an invitation to try to revalidate the title he won last year in Acapulco, from March 15 to 20. Everything will depend on your physical condition, your motivation and the results you get. It must be remembered that Nadal, and the rest of the tennis players, will once again defend their ranking points from March 8, the day on which the freeze that was established by the coronavirus pandemic ends, although the best result remains at 24 months and there are no mandatory events.

After the quarterfinal match against Tsitsipas, he did not clarify his closest future, but he did hint that it will depend on the evolution of the impact of COVID-19 and how it affects the tennis circuit: “Let's see what happens in my life, with my calendar … You have to go home, you have to understand, in these difficult situations in which we are living, what you have to do to prepare for the future in the best possible way. “