“The feeling is that it is my last Godó”said Rafael Nadal on April 15 in Barcelona.
“For me it is important to play for the last time in Madrid (…) If today were Paris, not something on the court”, he added on April 24 at the Mutua Madrid Open. Ten days later he was honored on center court.
“Today it seems impossible to think about going to Roland Garros to compete for something”commented on May 12 in Rome.
And today, May 25, in Paris, Rafael Nadal announces no, that this is not going to be his last Roland Garros. He still has a lot of tennis left in him. That although in ten days she will turn 38, she will continue traveling, competing and trying to add to her record.. That he hasn’t gotten tired of so much injury. But what has happened in recent days for this change in discourse? What has happened to make you go from seeing yourself without options to compete in Paris to dreaming of doing so in 2025?
In reality, Nadal has been playing cat and mouse with this matter for many months. In May 2023, when he called the media at his academy to say that he would not play Roland Garros, he said that the 2024 season would be his last on the professional circuit. But since then, Both Nadal and his entourage have been slipping several times that perhaps not, that perhaps, if his body responded, he was not going to retire..
“He has a mental strength and a desire to compete that only he fuels, because his entire inner circle says ‘well, I think this is the last year.’ But no, he has that power of conviction that he can do anything, and he is not going to stop,” the Argentine Juan ‘Pico’ Mónaco, a close friend of Nadal, told Clay a year ago. “If he comes back and wins, he won’t say goodbye to tennis.”
The ‘click’ of Madrid
Nadal returned, but did not win. In fact, his experiences on the court since he returned from the psoas injury have not been very encouraging.. He played three matches in Brisbane in January, was injured again, and did not reappear until the clay court tour, where he has only played eight matches.
“From my experience I know that there are many possibilities of me getting injured again, but I don’t want to force myself to say that it is my last Roland Garros”
When he reappeared in Barcelona, and in the following week in Madrid, the feeling within the team was that any game could be the last. They understood that it was on an ascending line, but they knew that at any moment something could break. But his physique held out and the third round match against Pedro Cachín at the Mutuawhich went beyond three hours, was a click. The body responded well to the demand and the next day he got up without problems. Both he and his team breathed a sigh of relief: the first big test had been passed.
The following training sessions in Rome followed the same trend and, beyond the anger at the defeat against Hurkacz, The objective before Roland Garros was achieved: Nadal was healthy and had accumulated kilometers in his legs. It is true that some less than they wanted, but when the Spaniard landed in Paris on Monday he did so with the thought that if training continued along the same path, his chances would increase.
And the training days on the clay couldn’t have gone better. The former number one has trained every day in double sessions, he has not lost a single set and the feelings are more than positive. Nadal has recovered his smile in training, something that has cost him a lot in recent months.
Nadal is back on his feet and suggests what many who know him think and say: that as long as he is healthy and as long as he is competitive, the Spaniard will have his career. “YesIn four days I get injured again and it has to end, as I felt a month and a half ago, well I’m sorry. From my experience I know that there are many options of being injured again, but I don’t want to force myself to say that it is my last Roland Garros.
