Rafael Nadal had doubts over his ability to compete prior to the Australian Open and he will still have them after the Grand Slam concludes. These aren’t the opinions of tennis analysts, but the player himself.
Nadal has so far defied the odds to reach the final of the Australian Open for the sixth time in his career. During the tournament he has defeated seeds Karen Khachanov, Denis Shapovalov in a five-set epic and most recently Matteo Berrettini in the semi-finals. Incredibly, he has now reached the semi-final stage or better in at least one Grand Slam tournament in 16 out of 18 seasons played since 2005.
Looking at the statistics alone, there are few surprises about Nadal’s run to yet another title match at a major. However, in recent times he has struggled physically and there were even moments when he doubted if he would be able to compete on the Tour at his highest level ever again.
“Every day has been an issue in terms of problems with the foot. The doubts are still here. Honestly the doubts are gonna be here probably for the rest of my career, without a doubt because I have what I have and that’s something that we cannot fix,” he told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
35-year-old Nadal suffers from Muller-Weiss syndrome, which is a degenerative disease that causes a deformity of one of the bones in the central part of the foot. The 35-year-old underwent treatment on his foot in Barcelona towards the end of 2021 after pulling the plug on his season in August.
“I’m super happy to be able to compete for the last three weeks at the level that I am doing,” said Nadal who is on a 10-match winning streak.
“It’s surprising for me to be able to play at the level that I am playing, but just compete and play tennis at the highest level again, facing the most important players of the world, for me, it’s something unbelievable.”
Injuries have been a prominent feature of Nadal’s career and it can be argued that he would have achieved even more success on the Tour if it wasn’t for these problems. Besides his foot, there have been setbacks concerning his knee, abductor, wrist, back and hand. It is fair to say that one of the keys behind his longevity in the sport have been the doctors who have been treating him.
“I feel alive in terms of my tennis life, in terms of my tennis career,” he explains.
“For a long time I wasn’t able to practice. Sometimes I went on court and I was able to practice 20 minutes, sometimes 45, sometimes zero and sometimes two hours. It has been very, very rough in terms of imagining myself playing at the best-of-five at this moment.”
A couple months ago the Spaniard contemplated the prospect of planning his farewell from the game if his foot issue had not improved. Those plans have now been put on ice, but nobody knows how long for.
This unpredictability is perhaps why Nadal is relishing his life on the Tour once again. On Sunday he has a shot of becoming the first man in history to win a 21st Grand Slam title which would move him ahead of rivals Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
Nadal has reminded the world of tennis in Melbourne that he is still one of the best in the world but the question is how much longer will his body allow him to continue playing?
“To be able to be where I am today I really can’t explain in words how important it is for me in terms of energy, personal satisfaction and being very thankful for all the support that I received from the fans and especially from the people really close to me,” Nadal concludes.
