Rafael Nadal is playing tennis right now, but he's not playing without fear, which is how we've gotten used to him over the years.
The Spaniard never really feared anything on the tennis court, and that approach earned him the nickname 'The Bull'. He's overcome tremendously difficult situations both in his career and on the court because of that approach.
These days, the situation has changed, as Nadal is no longer playing without fear. He had a pretty serious injury last year that nearly ended his career, so being a bit more careful does make sense. The rehabilitation didn't go smoothly; he experienced more than one setback, and he's yet to really shake that fear.
Even now, after playing for the third week in a row, Nadal is open about his fear. He can't really play 100%, but he's trying to get there, step by step, as he explained at the 2024 Italian Open.
"I did the things very step by step, trying to make small improvements day by day. But arrive the moment today that I need to try. I mean, I need to try to play at my hundred percent. Is not easy because I need to lose a little bit of fear that I have in some shots because, for example, in Brisbane I got a tear on the place that I had the surgery last year."
"Sometimes important surgery like I had, I had to remove an important part of my psoas tendon, put a lot of muscles around working more than before. I mean, it's about having the right time to adapt all these muscles to this new configuration of the hip. But I don't have that much time, no? That's the problem and that's the true."
He did win the first match at the Italian Open, so so far it's gone pretty good in Rome.
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