Rafael Nadal has defied all the odds to win his 14th French Open title. He was written off by most of the people out there due to his injury concerns and drop in form, however, none of that seemed to matter when he was playing his best tennis in Paris.
On his road to victory, he also defeated the defending champion and the current world number 1 Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals to progress to the further stages of the tournament.
The biggest challenge Rafael Nadal had to face in Rolland Garros was not his opponents, but his chronic foot injury which has been active ever since he lost in the Rome Masters before the French Open.
There were a lot of speculations pertaining to his retirement, however, it seems that nothing is confirmed as of now.
Will Rafael Nadal retire?
Rafael Nadal’s statements had sparked a frenzy as he claimed that he may retire after the French Open due to the pain from his injury. Nadal has gone through this earlier as well.
Even during the second half of the 2021 season, he was on the verge of retirement, however, he returned in style to win the Melbourne Summer and then, later on, went on to do the impossible and won the Australian Open by defeating Daniil Medvedev in the finals.
Nadal : “We can try to make a treatment to try create this feeling in a permanent condition. That’s we are planning to do next week. I don’t know the name of the treatment in English. The idea is to create the impact I have now on the nerve for a long period of time.”
— Tennis Majors (@Tennis_Majors) June 5, 2022
In the post-match interview after he won the finals of the French Open, he has given certain interesting details about his foot injury and the ways he has dealt with it. He stated,
“If I didn’t believe, I probably wouldn’t be here,”
“We played with no feeling in the foot, with an [pain-killing] injection on the nerve. The foot was asleep, and that’s why I was able to play.”
“It was a big surprise [to be here], unexpected and as everyone knows in the world of tennis, the preparation was not ideal.”
“I had been off the practice courts for a month and a half with a stress fracture on my rib, and then I had [a problem with my] foot.”
Rafael Nadal also said that he has a couple of options in order to help his injury go away. He is not much favourable toward surgery but he will explore it if he does not have any other option.
It is to be noted that Rafael Nadal had been out of action since the end of the Rome Open, and still managed to have a comfortable straight-set victory over Casper Rudd on the Phillipe Chartier court which led him to his 22nd Grand Slam.