OUR FANHOUSE TOOLBAR INTEGRATES THE LATEST SPORTS NEWS INTO YOUR WEB BROWSER AND INSTALLS IN SECONDS.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE TOOLBAR HERE.

Tennis

Nadal's Withdrawal Leaves Wimbledon (And Tennis) Reeling

Posted Jun 19, 2009 3:16PM By Greg Couch (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Wimbledon, ATP

Text SizeAAA
Rafael NadalThis is a disaster for tennis. Just say it simply.

Rafael Nadal will not play Wimbledon, which starts next week. He announced it on Friday, after two weeks of rehab for tendinitis in his knees.

"I'm better than I was a few weeks ago," he said. "And I just don't feel ready."

The disaster isn't just for the big party tennis was about to have, a two-week celebration of last year's classic Nadal-Federer Wimbledon final. That might have been the greatest match of all time, and even if it wasn't, it jump-started an entire sport.

Instead, there will be one giant hole in the middle of the Wimbledon draw.

And even bigger, this is the beginning of the end for Nadal. Oh, he'll get past this over the summer, and storm the courts at the U.S. Open again. I'm not saying he'll disappear in a few months, but he's not going to be around for years and years. Not without major adjustments in his game and his schedule.

It's the first sign of just how tenuous his rivalry with Federer, the best individual rivalry in sports, might be.

"If my career lasts for three more years, it lasts for three more years," Nadal said in the New York Times earlier this month. "I still want to improve at tennis. If it's two more years, then it's two. If it's five more years, perfect."

Two more years? Is it possible that that's all we'll get of this guy?

I know this is unfair, as we don't know exactly how much pain Nadal is in. And he has always been such a fighter. But it's hard to believe he's not going to play.

It seems that he should have tried to fight through this for Wimbledon.

Then rest. If his knees are that bad, then why didn't he rest them some during the clay-court season? Why did he tape them during the French Open?

As Andy Roddick put it last week, while saying he figured Nadal would play:

"I mean I've had tendinitis for years and years and years and years. On a positive side for Rafa, it's not something that ... you know, it's uncomfortable and it's painful, but it's not something that's going to be a career-threatening injury if you play on it.

"You know, it's kind of a fancy term for overuse."

You know, Nadal puts more punishment on his body than any tennis player ever has. It's the beauty of his game, really, the way he throws every last drop into every shot.

He's doing something we've never seen before: Storming the court.

But it's too much pressure, too much pounding on a body. If he's going to elongate this career, he's going to have to shorten some points, develop a heavier, flatter serve that might be less reliable, just to get some free points. He can't give his body such a beating even in the early rounds against lesser players.

And he's going to have to play less, skip clay-court tournaments, maybe blow off more of the non-majors.

Or, maybe just stop going to the Australian Open entirely and find a few months of rest between the U.S. Open and French.

"They were saying this years ago, that I couldn't last," Nadal told the Times. "And after four years, I'm better than I ever was. This irritates me, no?

"I'm tired of people telling me I can't go on playing like this. In the end, this is what makes me win, lose, everything. I can't control how I play."

Nadal tried. He traveled to London for rehab, leaving him close to Wimbledon. But he played two exhibitions in the past two days, and they didn't go well.

The Times of London said that during one of them, Uncle Toni Nadal, Nadal's coach and adviser, told Rafa to bend down and pick up a ball, and Nadal apparently said, "I can't."

Nadal lost to Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets on Thursday, and Toni Nadal said afterward that if he were Rafa, he would fly home to Mallorca now and forget about Wimbledon.

Nadal, instead, said he would play another exhibition on Friday, and then decide. Then on Friday, he lost to Stanislas Wawrinka, the world's 18th-ranked player.

Nadal has had a history of foot and knee problems, as the pounding has started to build up. He struggled on his knees in Madrid, before the French Open. But when he lost in the fourth round of the French to Robin Soderling, he insisted his knees were fine.

But shortly after that, Nadal pulled out of a grass-court warm-up tournament for Wimbledon, saying his movement had been limited.

"I am going to give my 200 percent," he said at the time, "to be ready for the most important tournament in the world."

That's the same percent he always gives.

The tennis world debated over Nadal's injury for the past two weeks.

Did Nadal just need a mental break after losing his tournament, the French? Or is he about done already, at least the way we know him?

People don't realize how grueling tennis is. And Nadal, with his style, only adds to that.

"It's an 11-month season where you can't pass the ball to a teammate and you pretty much have to show up every week," Roddick said. "Otherwise, it's your loss.

"You know, we play on different surfaces. We can travel to different continents one week and then ... You know, last year I played in Memphis one week and Dubai the next week followed by Palm Springs the week after that. So you throw all that together, and there is a little bit of wear and tear there, yeah."

So where does this leave Wimbledon? Did I mention the word disaster?

Federer will still be there, sure. And Murray, of Scotland, now has a better path to the final. Great Britain never produces Wimbledon champs.

Wimbledon will still be Wimbledon, but something special will be missing. It's a feeling tennis isn't ready to get used to.

(Like what you read here? Follow me on Twitter: @gregcouch)

Tags: rafael+nadal, RafaelNadal

Related Articles

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments

Greg Couch

Greg CouchGreg Couch is a national columnist and award-winning tennis writer for FanHouse.com. A former ranked amateur tennis player, who dabbled in a few pro tournaments, he came to FanHouse after 12 years at the Chicago Sun-Times. "The best tennis writer in America," according to Jason Whitlock, national columnist and guest host of the Jim Rome radio show.

MOST COMMENTED