Patrick Mouratoglou thinks it would be a bad idea for Rafael Nadal to try and play in hard court events after the 2024 Australian Open.
Nadal was out for nearly a year with a hip injury he sustained at last year's Australian Open. He made his comeback at the Brisbane International, where he reached the quarterfinal, before losing out to Jordan Thompson in a tight contest.
Sadly, the 37-year-old suffered a muscle problem in the same troublesome hip in Brisbane. The issue is not as serious as his previous hip injury, but Nadal had to withdraw from a Grand Slam for the 16th time by not playing at the Australian Open.
Some believe the 22-time Grand Slam champion will try to be fit for the hard court ATP Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami. For instance, Alex Corretja has said that Nadal will not simply wait for the clay court season.
However, the former coach of Serena Williams and Simona Halep, Mouratoglou, said on his Instagram channel that Nadal should instead not play until the clay court season.
"Roland Garros is still his 2024 major goal and he still has a chance to show up at the French with a good chance to win it, but I think he should definitely skip hard courts until the clay-court season in Europe."
Mouratoglou also went a step further than that and said he felt Nadal should not have even attempted a comeback for the Australian Open.
"I thought his schedule would be to skip the Australian Open, start the season in South America on clay, and stay on that surface until the European season on the same surface."
It is an interesting debate. One can understand why Mouratoglou thinks Nadal should prioritize coming back on his best surface, but it is also understandable that Nadal wanted to get match practice as quickly as possible.
Regardless, hopefully, Nadal, who was recently labelled as maybe the most important player ever, can be fully healthy whenever he returns again to tennis.
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