Rafael Nadal made many tennis fans sad on Thursday evening when he pulled out from the 2022 Wimbledon ahead of his semifinal match against Nick Kyrgios.
The tennis world couldn't wait to see Nick Kyrgios and Rafael Nadal battle it out on the Centre Court once again. Yet, the Spaniard was stopped by an injury as he held a press conference where he announced his withdrawal. He spoke a lot about his health during the press conference as he stated:
“I have had to pull out of the tournament. As everybody saw yesterday [Wed] I was suffering with pain in the abdominal area – and that is confirmed, there is a tear in the muscle. I knew something was not okay there."
“The communication is too late, I was thinking during the whole day the decision to make. It doesn’t make sense to go. Even if I did it many times in my career to keep going, tough circumstances, it is obvious if I keep going the injury will be worse and worse. I feel very sad to say that."
“I believe I cannot win two matches under these circumstances, I cannot serve. It is not only I cannot serve at the right speed, I cannot do the normal movement to serve. I don’t want to go out there and not be competitive. To be at this level to play to achieve my goal, there is a big chance to make things much worse.”
“Being honest, a couple of weeks ago I saw my career very difficult because of the foot injury. Now that the things are better in that case. That's the most dangerous thing that can today stop my tennis career, thinking that the things are going better in that way without a doubt."
“As I always said, for me the most important thing is happiness more than any title, even if everybody knows how much effort I put to be here. But I can't risk that match and stay two, three months outside of the competition because that's going to be a tough thing for me."
“If that happens, happens, but not because I was not doing the things the proper way. That's my decision and I have to live with that. I can't say another thing. I am very sad and have been a very tough one."
“Australia was not an issue. I didn't have many problems during the tournament. But I came back from long period time of injury. Roland Garros was very demanding, mentally especially and physically. But after that, things were going better. As I said, after how tough was Roland Garros, just the fact that I was here shows how important is this tournament for me and how much I wanted to play here."
“I did all the things the best way possible to give myself a chance here. I got to the semi-finals, so I'm playing very well the last couple of days. Especially yesterday, at the beginning of the match, playing at a very, very high level. Even that makes me feel little bit worse because I felt that playing at the level that I was playing, probably I will have a chance.”
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