Nadal suffers injury worry before Australian Open

Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal admitted Friday he was “a little more scared than usual” after a fresh injury headache clouded his build up to the Australian Open which gets underway in Melbourne on January 14. Nadal, a 22 time Grand Slam title winner, needed a medical time out towards the end of his quarterfinal loss at the Brisbane International, his first tournament for almost a year.

Nadal required treatment at 1 4 down in the third set of his match against Australian Jordan Thompson after feeling pain in his upper left thigh. Thompson won the match 5 7, 7 6 (8/6), 6 3 in a marathon of three hours and 25 minutes. Nadal squandered three match points in the second set before his latest injury woe.

Nadal said he had played pain free during his opening two rounds this week, but conceded he had been in pain towards the end of the quarterfinal. He said that while the pain was in a similar place to last year’s injury, the injury itself felt different. “It is a very similar place to what happened last year, but different, no? I feel it’s more muscle.

Last year it was tendon. For sure it is not the same like last year at all because when it happened last year, I felt something drastic immediately. Today, I didn’t feel anything. The only problem is because the place is the same, you are a little bit more scared than usual,” the 37 year old said.

“I hope to have the chance to be practising next week and to play Melbourne. Honestly, I am not 100 percent sure of anything now,” he added. Whether you like Djokovic or loathe him, agree with him or not about the controversies he's created or confronted, not since Bill Tilden has men's tennis witnessed such a game changing superstar.

Does his dominance in 2023 make him the undisputed GOAT? Nadal, who took most of 2023 off after suffering an injury at last year’s Australian Open, underwent surgery on his left hip during his time away from the tour. The former World No. 1 has also seen his ranking slip to 672 while rival Novak Djokovic has passed him in the Grand Slam title race with 24 to his name.

Nadal stressed he did not come into the Brisbane tournament expecting to win, and hinted that even the Australian Open was too soon for him. “In an ideal world, it is just the muscle supercharged after a few days of effort and a very tough match,” Nadal said, adding that he had been very cautious when talking about his comeback.

“That is why I’m talking all the time that my goal is to try to be competitive in a few months.” Later on Friday, Nadal, the 2009 and 2022 Australian Open champion, said he would undergo tests on his injury in the coming days. “This is part of the process that I am going through. I had a small sensation, not a good one, in a similar place where I had the surgery, but it’s too early to say anything,” he wrote on .

“Hopefully it’s a charged muscle and in the next days I’ll make some more tests. If it’s only a charged muscle it’s been a very positive week.” Comments Related stories Related Topics.