Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal returns to the courts at a tournament in Brisbane, Australia, almost a year after his last game, with the former world number one admitting it could be his last season.
Nadal, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles in his career, returned to competition this Sunday almost a year after his last match at the 2023 Australian Open, where he suffered a left leg injury while playing alongside his coach Mark Lopez in a peer match in Brisbane.
Nadal and Lopez were defeated 6-4 by Australians Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell, with the Spaniard now preparing for his singles comeback where he will face Austrian Dominic Thiem as his opponent in Brisbane.
“The problem with saying this will be my last season is that I can’t 100 percent predict what will happen in the future. That’s why I say “probably”. Obviously, there is a high percentage that this will be my last season. “This will be your last season,” Nadal said.
Nadal, 37, explained that he cannot predict what he will be like in the future and recalled the difficult process of returning to the game.
“I can’t predict whether my body will allow me to enjoy tennis as much as I have over the last twenty years. I don’t know if my body will allow me to be competitive. Not in the sense of winning major tournaments, but in the sense that I feel happy, I feel competitive, I go out on the field and I feel like I can compete with anyone,” he explained.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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