Rafael Nadal shocked many people with his brutal honesty about his Roland Garros participation, which won't happen if he doesn't improve physically compared to now.
The Spaniard made a comeback at the Barcelona Open last week, playing two matches. He won the first match and lost the second match, and his third match on clay is coming up at the Madrid Open this week.
The Spaniard will be facing a talented player in Darwin Blanch, but the goal for him is obviously Roland Garros. He was asked about it ahead of his return at the Madrid Open and gave a pretty honest response, which many fans won't like.
Plenty of fans would have probably preferred him to be less truthful, but he did admit that he wouldn't play in Paris if he felt the way he's feeling this week. Obviously, that only means that he doesn't feel close to his peak yet, which is normal.
He just played a few matches on his comeback. Playing at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid serves the purpose of getting ready, but just the fact that he admitted to a chance of not playing is probably creating all sorts of alarms.
"If I arrive Paris the way I feel today, I will not play. I will play Roland Garros if I feel competitive. If I can play, I play. If I can’t play, I can’t. It won’t be the end of the world or the end of my career. I still got goals after Roland Garros, like the Olympics."
Nadal did make a fair point that his season doesn't end with Roland Garros because the Olympics might actually be an even easier goal, considering it's the same courts, and he'll be playing only best-of-three matches compared to Roland Garros, where it will be best-of-five.
Maybe that would be a detriment years ago but today he probably wouldn't want to play very long matches.