On the evening of May 18, Beijing time, Spanish tennis superstar Nadal held a press conference and personally announced that he would withdraw from the upcoming 2023 French Open due to injury.
It is worth noting that this is also the first time in the 37-year-old Nadal's career that he has missed the French Open. Since winning the Musketeers Cup in his first tournament in 2005, Nadal has participated in 18 consecutive French Opens, and playing in Roland Garros has become a fixed agreement for Nadal every year. In Roland Garros. Nadal has successfully lifted the trophy 14 times, including last year's victory over Norwegian Ruud in the final. Nadal is also the player who has won the most French Open titles in history and deserves to be the "king of clay".
But since losing to McDonald in the second round of the Australian Open on January 18 this year, Nadal has been on the waiver for a long time due to injury. At that time, Nadal confirmed that the injury was a second-degree injury to the iliopsoas muscle in his left leg, and he was expected to rest for 6-8 weeks. But sadly, Nadal's injury recovery has not been ideal. He has also been on a four-month break and has still not been able to return to the game.
In the previous clay-court season, Nadal had announced his withdrawal from the Barcelona 500, the Madrid Masters and the Rome Masters. At present, Nadal's world ranking has fallen out of the top 10 to 15th in the world.
What is even more embarrassing is that with Nadal announcing his withdrawal from this year's French Open to give up defending his title, Nadal will deduct last year's 2,000 championship points, Nadal ATP points will only have 445 points, after the end of this year's French Open, Nadal's world ranking will definitely fall out of the top 100. The last time Nadal fell out of the top 100 was 20 years ago.
Poor injury recovery coupled with the "advanced age" of 37 years old, Nadal is not optimistic about returning to the peak in the future. This "king of red soil" is probably getting closer and closer to the day of his official retirement.