Rafael Nadal's primary objective every year is to play and win Roland Garros, and he's been fortunate enough to do it a record 14 times.
In fact, since his debut appearance in 2005, Nadal has only ever skipped the clay Slam once in his career, and it was due to unavoidable circumstances this year when he was forced to miss out to undergo surgery on a damaged hip.
Having missed the full tennis calendar since leaving Australia in January 2023, Nadal is set to rejoin his peers at the start of next season, marking a year since his last competitive match. After months of speculation, the Spanish tennis legend has confirmed the Brisbane 250 as his first outing of 2024.
Nadal is an ambitious athlete and will be in contention to fight for top honors next year should his health allow him to, and his main objective will be to play the French Open again. He will be targeting to win a mind-boggling 15th title.
His uncle concurred about his nephew's goal for next season when the word Roland Garros was thrown around during a recent interview with RMC and published by Tennis Majors. According to Toni Nadal, the 37-year-old has been training at a "good intensity" with next year's French Open firmly in mind.
"Rafael is doing well. He’s back in training with good intensity, with the most important thing being the (dream) of playing the French Open again. I don’t think he’s thought about retiring for one simple reason, which he’s told me many times. He doesn’t want to retire with the feeling of being injured."
"What he dreams of is having a good year, trying to play at a very high level again. He knows it’s going to be very difficult, because every year it gets harder and harder… But his dream is to try to be here again, especially to play in Paris again. If his body is fine, he thinks he’ll have the chance to do really great things at Roland Garros."
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