Rafael Nadal pulls out of Roland Garros and announces his retirement from tennis in 2024

Rafael Nadal withdrew from the French Open due to his hip injury not healing and has said he expects 2024 to be his final year in professional tennis.

“I don’t make this decision, my body makes this decision,” said the 36-year-old Spaniard, who has played clay court every year since 2005 and won it 14 times.

Nadal said he’s taken a few months off, which means he’ll definitely miss Wimbledon and most likely the US Open before starting to play again.

And he said next year would draw the curtain on his career, which has so far earned 22 Grand Slam singles titles.

“This will probably be my last year on the pro tour, I can’t say that 100% because you never know what’s going to happen,” he said at a press conference.

“The injury I received in Australia has not healed as we had hoped. “Roland Garros has become impossible. I won’t be there in many years, with everything (the tournament) means to me.” Nadal said he would not set a date for his return, but said the Davis Cup in November could be a potential target.

He was emotional when he spoke of his determination to return to tennis as he had already experienced so many setbacks due to injuries.

“I don’t think I deserve to end [now],” He said.

“I think I have fought enough in my entire sports career that my end will not come today, here at the press conference. My end will be different and I will fight for my end to be different.”

The former world No. 1 has not played since the Australian Open in January, where he suffered a hip injury in a shock second-round loss to Mackenzie McDonald of the United States.

He was expected to recover within six weeks, just in time for clay court season, and begin his assault on a record 15th Roland Garros title.

However, with just over two weeks left on his 37th birthday and missing the Masters in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, Nadal looks set to face a final battle that he can’t win. .

After a career marked by knee, wrist and foot injuries in particular, the alarm bells have been ringing louder in the past year.

Nadal’s unbeaten start in 2022, when he won his second Australian Open title, ended with a chest injury in Indian Wells.

“It feels like a needle is being pricked inside all the time,” he admitted.

He made it to the 14th French Open in June, but only after discovering that he required daily painkiller injections in his leg due to Muller-Weiss syndrome, a rare degenerative disease.

“I played without feeling the foot, with an anesthetic injection into the nerve. The leg was sleeping, and therefore I could play, ”he said then in Paris.

He added that he would undergo a course of treatment that would involve burning the nerves in his leg to permanently dull the pain.

A few weeks later, his dream of a third Wimbledon title ended with a withdrawal from the semi-finals due to abdominal strain.

Nadal’s extended absence this year also saw him fall out of the world’s top 10 for the first time in 18 years.

His record at the French Open is unlikely to ever be broken. Since his debut in the 2005 championship, he has won 112 victories and lost only three times.

Two of those losses came to great rival Novak Djokovic in 2015 and 2021. Another loss was to Robin Soderling in 2009.

Djokovic, who shares a men’s record of 22 Slams with Nadal, will be favorites for the French Open this year, along with world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, who desperately wants his Spanish compatriot to surrender.

“Let’s hope he continues to play for a long time and that we can enjoy his tennis,” said Alcaraz, 20-year-old heir to the Nadal throne.

Originally published as ‘I don’t deserve this’: Nadal’s sad announcement about retirement