"I'm confident things will go well" - Nadal breaks down Roland Garros triumph with the injury

Wednesday, 08 June 2022 at 20:15

Updated at Saturday, 14 December 2024 at 12:10

byZachary Wimer

Rafael Nadal won the 2022 Roland Garros without any sensation in his left foot due to repeated injections to numb the pain.

Speaking with the Spanish media following the triumph, Nadal broke down some of the things that were unknown at the time. He opened by explaining how he felt already after the second round of the clay-court major.

"I was limping badly. I still hadn’t injected my nerve. From there, we came to the conclusion that I couldn’t keep injecting myself where I had been because it was continuing to get worse."

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"We made the decision to inject the nerve at a distance, and that was a good decision. If we hadn’t done that, we would never have got to this point."

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Nadal won his 14th Roland Garros while using injections to numb the pain in his foot. He explained the procedure and why he chose to undergo it.

"It’s not an exact science, but it tends to last about seven or eight hours. Yes, it hurts. It’s bearable, but doing that 20 minutes before going out on court every day... it isn’t nice, honestly. You have control of your foot, but there is no sensation."

"There may be a little more risk of twisting your ankle. The way I’m playing, with a numb foot, it doesn’t matter if there’s less feeling because I go from limping to being pain free."

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Nadal is aware that this solution was only temporary, which is why he wants to try a treatment that could help him with his situation more permanently.

"The goal is clear; to carry out pulsed radiofrequency on the nerve to try and achieve the sensation I have when I’m playing with a numb foot. We’re trying to make that permanent. If it works, we’ll remove the sensitivity from the sensitive part of the foot."

"And there’s another significant factor; we’ve shown that I can play with the distance blocking. If we can get this treatment to work, permanently affecting the nerve, I will be able to keep playing. I’m used to taking things step by step. I’m confident things will go well."

Nadal also said he is not considering retirement and is not worried about what comes after tennis. He admitted that there are many things outside of tennis that make him happy, and the foot pain can be fixed easily with surgery. The problem at the moment is that it would end his career instantly.