Rafael Nadal’s Grand Slam run is over
Rafael Nadal’s Grand Slam run is over. The most memorable stretches of his career – The first half of 2022
It turned out that the latest injury that Rafael Nadal is going through became the reason for his withdrawal from the most anticipated semi-final against Nick Kyrgios.
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Nadal succeeded in beating Taylor Fritz in a five-set match to advance to the Wimbledon semi-final for the eighth time in his career.
However, the Spaniard had to withdraw after this victory giving Kyrgios a free walk-in in the Grand Slam final.
It was reported that he was being nursed for his abdominal injury during the match against Fritz. The pain gave him the feeling that he would not be able to complete his match. But fortune favored him and he did finish the five-set match which lasted for more than 4 hours and a tie-breaker gave him the opportunity to win. He won by 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-4). But in the same match, he had this intuition that he would not be able to go on for the next match even after winning the current one.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I can’t give you a clear answer,” said Nadal.
“I don’t know exactly what I have. It’s clear something’s not right. I’m obviously worried.”
To have injuries is nothing new for Nadal. He has missed or been forced to withdraw from games in the past because of a rare foot condition called Mueller-Weiss syndrome which causes wear and tear on bones in the feet. But he continued and won over his obstacle. But the abdominal issue became a new dilemma, and Nadal apparently realized that he would not be able to win another match while dealing with this.
“It’s difficult,” Nadal said of playing through the injury.
“Nothing can be fixed when you have a thing like this. That’s it.”
“I made my decision because I believe that I can’t win two matches under these circumstances,” Nadal said. “I can’t serve. Is not only that I cant serve at the right speed, it’s that I can’t do the normal movement to serve.”
“I don’t want to go out there, not be competitive enough to play at the level that I need to play to achieve my goal, and with a big chance to make the things much worse, no?”
Nadal’s glorious 2022
Rafael Nadal continued to etch his name in the pages of history in the year 2022 which turned out to be one of the most memorable stretches of his career. The tennis season of 2022 saw Nadal in resurgent fashion, and he took the attention and dominated the tennis court.
He initiated his year by winning a trophy in the match at Melbourne and defeated Maxime Cressy in straight sets. He then moved on to seal the record-breaking 21st Grand Slam title.
He won his 14th Roland Garros title in June 2022.
He won a match at the 2022 Australian Open against Daniil Medvedev. He won a total of 7 matches at the AO.
He defeated Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4 in straight sets and won the Mexican Open. He won all five matches at the Mexican Open.
He won 5 out of 6 matches in Indian Wells.
He defeated Casper Ruud in straight sets (6-3, 6-3, 6-0) to win the French Open, sealing a record-extending 22 Grand Slam titles to his name.
Rafael Nadal so far has locked a 30-3 win-loss record this year.