MADRID, 18 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal admitted that he is “at a stage” in which his “dream is to play again and be competitive” and insisted that “possibly” 2024 will be his last year playing, but without ruling out one hundred percent. that he cannot do it again or that he can extend it longer, citing November as the month in which he will have “clarity” about how he is with the psoas injury that has kept him off the slopes for eight months.
“I am in a stage of my life in which I have a dream which is to play again and be competitive, it is not to win Roland Garros and Australia, that is very far away at the stage I am in in my life,” said Nadal in an interview this Monday on ‘Movistar Plus+’.
The Spaniard stressed that he has encountered two obstacles such as “age, which is insurmountable”, and “physical problems” that prevent him from training. “The union of both makes it very difficult for me to aspire to certain things, but it doesn’t take away my enthusiasm,” he said.
The former world number one maintains that 2024 “possibly” will be his last year, but he does not know for sure. “I think there is a good chance that yes because I see how my body is, but how it will be in four months I don’t know, I am always open to what the future may bring,” he said.
In this sense, Nadal is also not “clear” about what his schedule would be if he were to play again because “the way of approaching the year changes if you have one goal or another” and that may depend on whether he does not recover from the hip injury. or that if he is allowed to compete, he should not get “one hundred percent” excited because he has “no choice.” “What if suddenly I’m perfect and my body recovers and I feel energetic to continue? My physique and my head will tell me what they allow me to do,” he added.
“In mid-November I will have clarity about how I am, especially how the injury is,” added the winner of 22 Grand Slams, who is training “40 minutes, three days a week and with many hours in gymnastics in recovery”. “But I play without moving and with maximum caution,” said the man from Manacor.
Rafa Nadal stated that, if he returned, he did not have a plan yet, but that his “ideal roadmap is to play to compete at the highest level.” “And if I am, I will try to use it in the tournaments that I want the most,” he admitted.
“I LIVE WITH CONTROLLED PAIN”
One of them could be the Paris Olympic Games, which will have tennis at Roland Garros and which would be “a nice finishing touch if you are up for it.” “I am not a negative person, I am realistic and cautious. The way I make my calendar can change because if I feel that I have any chance of winning Roland Garros I know that I cannot play all the important tournaments, I would have to choose. If I don’t have it “Maybe I’d like to do more of a farewell tour,” he remarked.
The Spanish tennis player, who underwent surgery for hip surgery on June 3, has been “doing other things” that he had “never been able to do” and “managing to enjoy other things during this time.” “I needed a point and a departure, and although I won Roland Garros in the middle, since Indian Wells 2022, when I broke my rib playing with Carlos (Alcaraz), it has been a hard year and a half, I have not had a moment of tranquility and the results disguised the reality of day-to-day life,” he stressed.
“I wanted to make sure that by stopping I would recover. I made another round of medical consultations and in the end there was no way to recover my psoas, which was very bad, and if I didn’t have surgery, I wouldn’t recover even if I stopped for a long time. It seems to have gone well, I have had complicated months of recovery, but afterwards I have been fine, with time with the family and five weeks of vacation. I needed to disconnect from everything in every way,” warned the Manacorí.
“Living with daily pain is more complicated, but I live with controlled pain, which does not make my life bitter. I am more ‘screwed’ when I have more pain than necessary, I have a very bad foot and sometimes it does not let me live in peace because sometimes Sometimes it’s hard for me to go down the stairs at home,” said the former world number one.
During this time, he watched the “Wimbledon finals and the US Open,” although he watches “little tennis out of sheer disconnection.” “I turn the page quickly, it doesn’t hurt me to see it, I haven’t been able to be in places where I would have liked to for a while, but I accept it naturally,” she highlighted.
YOU DO NOT SEE THE PROJECTION ABOUT CARLOS ALCARAZ “EXAGGERATED”
Regarding his successes, he did not hide that “without a doubt” he would have liked “to be the tennis player with the most ‘Grand Slams'”, but that “not at all” this goal “has been an obsession or a frustration.” “With 22 ‘greats’ you can live frustrated and in this sense I think that it would have been more frustrating for Djokovic not to achieve it and that is perhaps why he has achieved it, he has taken that ambition to the maximum. My ambition has been healthy and has allowed me to see things in perspective and not get more angry than necessary,” he said.
“I haven’t played too much, for many years I have been one of those who play the least. I have missed four and a half years of ‘Grand Slams’, but that’s what sport is about, that doesn’t mean I’m better than Djokovic. Maybe I’ll come back and I win three more, but it’s unlikely,” added Nadal, who, “out of sheer confusion,” has not yet sent the Serbian “any message” of congratulations for winning the US Open. “From experience it is better to let it go because at first you have a thousand messages,” he clarified.
Asked by Carlos Alcaraz, he does not see it as “exaggerated” that there is such a projection on him because for him the one the Murcian has is “brutal.” “He is a new young man who arrives, who has already won two ‘Grand Slams’, he has youth, power and ambition, what happens is that later in the careers of each athlete many things can happen and there are things that do not depend on “If I could tell you something, it would be to continue improving, that enthusiasm is what has motivated me the most in my career,” he highlighted.
Finally, he confessed that he would not rule out being a coach for “some weeks”, but not “the bulk” of his life, and that he would like to be president of Real Madrid. “But first I have to do many things and now we have the best possible president. Life takes many turns and then you have to know if you are qualified to do some things, I know my limitations,” he said.