Comment WIMBLEDON, England — Rafael Nadal pulled out of Wimbledon with an abdominal injury on Thursday, ahead of a highly anticipated semifinal against Nick Kyrgios. It ended the chances of Nadal, the Australian Open and French Open champion, becoming the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to win all four Grand Slams in a calendar year, even though he has repeatedly stressed that he had not longed for the feat. discrimination. Kyrgios, the first player to reach a walk-off final in the modern Wimbledon draw that began in 1922, will face three-time defending champion Novak Djokovic on Sunday or Cameron Norrie, who will play their semi-final on Friday . “As you can imagine,” Nadal began during a surprise press conference, “I’m here because I have to withdraw from the tournament,” adding shortly, “This is confirmed – I have a torn muscle.” He called it “obvious that if I continue, the injury is going to get worse and worse,” and said, “I made my decision because I think I can’t win two fights. [a semifinal and the final] in this case.” He noted that “out of self-respect in a way, I don’t want to go out and not be competitive.” Novak Djokovic’s return joins Center Court legend at Wimbledon He said, “I’m very sad, and it was hard,” a decision that had consumed him all day. Nadal, 36 and still in the limelight of a glittering two-decade career, considered stopping in his quarter-final match with Californian Taylor Fritz on Wednesday and said his father and sister waved to him from the crowd during the second set. set that he should retire. . When he won that epic, 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-4), he added to a legend that has built up over the years but slowly accelerated: his ability to persevere Injury with dread or glaring discomfort to play tennis at heights. By Wednesday night, he said he would be tested on Thursday, that he was worried about being able to play Kyrgios in his first Grand Slam semifinal and that he saw little chance in the way of treatment. He had left court sometime Wednesday to take anti-inflammatories and painkillers, he said. He still managed to get his form up to the point where Fritz saw his mobility almost at its usual height—better than “normal players,” Fritz noted—and where Fritz said, “I was absolutely ripping the ball through the turns, and ran and let’s throw them back for winners, so…” By Thursday night, however, Nadal noted that the abdominal injury had appeared days ago, but said: “The very small thing that I had days ago became bigger” on Wednesday. He said the normal recovery time is three or four weeks. He said the injury wouldn’t cause problems in baseline play, but prohibitive problems on the serve. “Not only can’t I serve at the right speed,” he said, “I can’t make the normal motion to serve.” He had recalibrated his serve to a slower tempo to help him withstand Fritz, which became part of the match’s lore. In that decision, Nadal could draw on the experience of the 2009 US Open, a tournament he highlighted at the 2021 Australian Open when he posed a question about injuries. “It depends on what kind of injury you have,” he said at the time. “You’ve got something broken, I think you’ve got a strain or your stomach — for example, I’ve done it in the past and you make mistakes because it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on when you’re racing. For example, I remember in the 2009 US Open I started the US Open with a strain, I think, here in the abs. I start with about six millimeters of strain and . . . I lost in the semi-final against [Juan Martin] Del Potro and I finished the tournament with 26mm. Of course it wasn’t a smart decision.” In that semi-final, Nadal suffered a rarity among his 65 Grand Slam appearances: 6-2, 6-2, 6-2. This withdrawal becomes his second among those 65, counting the 2016 French Open just before the third round. The Wimbledon ban and the coronavirus opened the door for new faces Nadal won the French Open this year despite a leg injury that required significant treatment and left him at times not convinced he could finish the tournament. His run included a semifinal in which Alexander Zverev retired in the second set with an ankle injury that required surgery. Nadal said on Thursday that while his Australian Open was almost injury-free, even when he withdrew there, the French Open was “very demanding mentally and especially physically”. However, he had arrived at Wimbledon and had been among players ranked 41st (in four sets), 106th (in four sets), 54th (in three sets), 25th (in three sets) and 14th (in five sets) and was starting to really like his form. After clashing with No. 21 Botic van de Zandschulp in the round of 16, he noted his improvement over the course of the tournament and said: “I’m starting to feel that my ball is doing more damage than at the beginning of the tournament. I think I’m making the ball go faster again with my forehand, with my backhand. I think I work well with the slice as well.” He has not won Wimbledon since 2010, the second of his two championships here among the 22 major men’s titles. But then he hadn’t won the Australian Open since 2009 before claiming it this year with a stunning comeback from two sets down against Daniil Medvedev. “The test says I have what I have,” he said Thursday. “There’s always an option, but in this particular case, it’s not like the leg where I know the injury is there and the injury won’t get worse in this particular case. It’s obvious that if I continue, the injury will increase, no?’
