French Open 2016: Nadal out of Open and is doubt for Wimbledon

Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from the French Open rather than risk a potentially career-ending injury to his left wrist.

Rafael Nadal wears a bandage on his left wrist as he takes part in a training session ahead of the French Open.

Tears were welling up in Rafael Nadal’s eyes as the nine-times French Open champion admitted that he was having to withdraw from this year’s tournament at Roland Garros rather than risk a potentially career-ending injury to his left wrist.

Nadal has experienced many cruel injury blows during his career, not least his most painful loss to Robin Soderling on Court Philippe Chatrier seven years ago when the agony from his knees was so excruciating that he was unable to play again for another three months.

However, never before had he appeared so emotional as when admitting that his long-trusted personal doctor, Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, had warned him that he must retire from the tournament he reveres above all others. With his voice wavering with emotion, Nadal maintained: “Today is one of the toughest in my career; having to pull out of the tournament that has always been the most important for me. This is a tournament I love so much.

“So, for me this is a very tough moment. You expect and you wait for these two weeks for the whole year, and to have to retire today is very bad news for me. You can imagine how tough it was.”

The No 4 seed revealed that he was able to play his second-round match against Argentina’s Facundo Bagnis on Thursday only with the help of an injection that numbed the wrist.

Despite winning 6-3, 6-0, 6-3 he has been informed by Cotorro that he would put himself at risk of tearing the tendon completely if he tried to repeat the process. Therefore Nadal was forced to make the earliest exit from Roland Garros in his 12th visit to the clay-court tournament.

“It’s not broken, but if I keep playing, it’s going be broken in the next couple of days,” a heartbroken Nadal said. “If I continue playing, then it will be impossible to finish the tournament. Angel says he cannot inject anaesthetics into my wrist for five more games. He says it is impossible. I needed five more matches. But if my wrist cannot withstand five more matches, I simply cannot play.”

Nadal admitted he had been playing in pain since playing the Masters 1000 event in Madrid at the beginning of the month and he was forced to contest the semi-final he lost to Andy Murray with the help of a previous injection. However, the former world No 1, ranked fifth in the world and seeded fourth at Roland Garros because of the enforced absence of Roger Federer, had looked to be recapturing his very best clay-court form after a demoralising 2015 by winning back-to-back tournaments in Monte Carlo and Barcelona.

Since suffering the injury, Nadal has also contested the Italian Open where he lost in the quarter-finals to Novak Djokovic. “The pain was much lighter in Rome, and here it’s quite the opposite,” he said. “It’s become worse and worse. So there comes a time when I can’t hit the ball anymore. I cannot play a forehand at all.”

Nadal intends to spend at least two weeks with his wrist immobile in a special cast. Therefore his participation in the Aegon Championships at London’s Queen’s Club, beginning on June 13, is highly improbable and Wimbledon, two weeks later, very doubtful. “I can tell you that I will not play before I have recovered completely,” he said. “There is a solution. It’s not like when I had issues with my knee, because there we really couldn’t see the end of the tunnel. Here there is a diagnosis and a time frame for immobilisation. Of course medicine is not mathematics. You can’t merely rely on the dates that your treatment is supposed to end. Maybe I’ll be three months off the circuit.”

With his rejuvenated form of late, Nadal was expected to meet Djokovic, the No 1 seed, in the semi-finals so the Serb’s leading threat en route to the title he craves has been removed. Today (Saturday) he faces Aljaz Bedene, the British No 2 and the world No 66, through to the third round of a grand slam for the first time is clearly benefiting from having Leon Smith, the Great Britain Davis Cup captain, as a temporary coach.

Bedene, who has played Djokovic once before and was beaten in straight sets at last year’s Australian Open, was beset with confidence and motivational issues following the recent blow of being blocked again from representing his adopted country by the International Tennis Federation.

Now the self-belief and drive are returning although it will be put to the ultimate test today (Saturday). “For someone who was so low, he’s been very responsive in the work we’ve done together but it’s now down to Aljaz to go in there with belief and do his best against the top player in the world,” Smith said. “He can do well, because he has the weapons in his game to hurt [others].”

The Times