Rafa Nadal will not play in the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, one of his favorite tournaments and in which he would have tried to defend the title achieved in 2021. The Spaniard is still not recovered from the rib injury he suffered in the Masters 1,000 in Indian Wells and which has prevented him from competing this week in Monte Carlo.
Nadal’s team spread the news in a statement sent to the Reuters agency: “Rafa has withdrawn from the list of participants in the Barcelona tournament. We still don’t know when his first clay court tournament will be. We hope it will be soon.”. Shortly after, AS was able to confirm it.
In this way, Nadal continues with the deadlines set by the doctor Ángel Ruiz Cotorro, who assured that the tennis player should stop between four and 6 weeks to recover from this problem in the ribs. There is still no date for Nadal’s return but, after ruling out Barcelona, his return could take place in Madrid (May 1-8) or in Rome (May 8-15) before playing Roland Garros (May 22 to June 5 ).
He will lose 680 points and Tsitsipas can cut him
Nadal’s resignation to compete in Monte Carlo and Barcelona due to his injury may also affect the ranking. Next week Nadal will lose 180 points that he could not defend in the Principality and the following week the 500 that he won as champion of Godó. This could cause Tsitsipas cut distances with him in the ranking. However, the Greek has the difficult task of defending the 1,000 points of champion in Monte Carlo last year and in Barcelona he could only add 200, since he defends the 300 finalist last year.