Rafael Nadal withdrew from this year's Indian Wells Masters, which is, historically, one of the most prestigious and biggest events on the ATP calendar.
With his future beyond 2024 far from certain, onlookers are speculating that Nadal might have traveled for his last tennis tournament in the United States. His schedule for the remainder of the year is unclear, and he revealed that he would make a final decision on his career before Roland Garros.
His decision to miss the first Masters of 2024 was based on a lack of self-belief in his game. Nadal was frank in his social media update, which he shared with his fans a couple of days ago, that his body was not ready to match the demands and intensity of a major tournament.
It was a surprise, considering that he played at the Netflix Slam exhibition match against Carlos Alcaraz without showing any visible discomfort in any part of his body. The 37-year-old has been battling hip injuries since the start of 2023.
In fact, he missed 11 months of action last year and only returned to the tour in Brisbane in January. Sadly, he hurt another muscle in his hip at that event and ended up missing key events like the Australian Open and Qatar Open.
Having pulled out from Indian Wells this week and decided to skip the Miami Open, which begins in late March, Nadal's tally of missed hard-court tournaments (only the biggest events like Masters 1000 and Grand Slams) is quite staggering if you narrow the list to the start of 2019.
In the last five years, he has missed 18 of 25 Masters 1000 tournaments on the surface (managing to play twice at Indian Wells, once in Cincinnati and Montreal, and three times at the Paris Masters).
However, his presence in Grand Slam tournaments is somewhat better, as he has played in seven of his last 11 hard court majors and won two of them (the 2019 US Open and the 2022 Australian Open).
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