'Waiting For Rafa Desperately': Nadal's Comeback Will Take Time Says Corretja
ATP
Rafael Nadal is reportedly set to come back to tennis next year; however, Alex Corretja is unsure whether it will be for the 2024 Australian Open.
It's widely accepted that Rafael Nadal will make his long-awaited comeback at the 2024 Australian Open. His uncle Toni said it a while ago, and after Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley kind of confirmed it, anything but that would be a huge surprise to many people.
Yet, former ATP player and current analyst Alex Corretja isn't sure that is going to happen. Nadal himself kind of expressed doubt on it on social media in response to Tiley's comments; the Spaniard might have a point.
In his recent talk with Eurosport, Corretja explained that only Nadal probably knows when he's going to come back, and only he will officially announce it.
After taking a while from not playing tennis, I was thinking that Rafa will be the one announcing when he's going to be back. “But the announcement was a bit like a wrong foot for everyone. At the beginning, I thought maybe that's something that they talked to each other about and planned it like this.
But then after I saw what Rafa said I felt like ‘okay, they need to be very careful what they say about Rafa's news’. Because it's still almost three months away from the Australian Open, lots of things can happen and I don't think it's necessary to put the whole pressure on yourself like ‘oh yeah, I’m going to be there’.
The doubt for Corretja mostly comes down to his own experience with injuries because you can never predict how your body will react, especially at his age and after such a long injury. He might be technically ready by the Australian Open, but how will his body feel?
Because you don't know how you're going to react, how your body is going to feel after you start playing sets, after you do some more fitness. After you play three hours one day and maybe how is your body for the next day? And this is pretty much what you need to do before you go into a Grand Slam, especially after such a long time without playing.
