	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ROLEX PARIS MASTERS

November 2, 2019

Rafael Nadal

Paris, France

D. SHAPOVALOV/R. Nadal

W/O

THE MODERATOR: Unfortunately, as you know, Rafa is going to pull out with an abdominal injury. He's here to explain what happened this morning and then we'll open up for a few questions.

RAFAEL NADAL: Well, good afternoon. Sorry to be in that position, but that's happen sometimes, and that's it. Everything was going the right way, even if the hand had been in a better shape after coming here with some doubts.

Today, in the morning, I had been practicing well. And in one of the last serves of the warm-up, I felt something in the abdominal. And immediately I came back to the doctor here to do the echography and to check with the doctor, and the doctor told me that we need to wait a little bit more.

So I waited for one hour and a half more to do a second test. And we did it, we saw something on the image, probably a small strain. And then I tried to come back on court to practice again and to see how the things are going with my serve, but I still feeling the pain there.

So playing is difficult today for different reasons. For the first reason, because I think that abdominal don't allow me to serve at the level that I need to serve to be competitive. And second thing because when there is a strain in a muscle that is making a lot of effort in every single serve, so the chance to increase that problem is big.

I went through that in the past, so that's why the recommendation of the doctors have been to not play. And I think in that case, even if it's super sad moment for me because I have been enjoying a lot during the whole tournament, having fun on court, and feel myself in a very good shape, honestly, being in a round that put me in a position that I have been fighting for, for big things here, I have to take that decision and that's all. Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English, please.

Q. As you said, it's not the first time you get this kind of injury. Did you feel it coming at some point? It's the same nature of injury as the last one?
RAFAEL NADAL: I had this issue in the US Open 2009 with a bad experience. Because I started the tournament with, if I remember, around 6, 7, millimeters of strain and I keep playing, I keep playing.

And that was the year that I lost the semifinals against Del Potro. So I finished the tournament with 28-millimeter strain, so have been a big, big thing after that. I remember well because I couldn't play semifinals of Davis Cup that was against Israel in that moment.

So for me, taked almost a month outside of the tennis court, so we don't want to repeat that.

Q. Do you think you'll be able to recover for the ATP finals, which is just over a week's time?
RAFAEL NADAL: I will do all what I can do and all what's mathematically possible to recover for it.

But as you can expect, today I can't answer this question with the right position.

Q. Do you have some idea what happened? Maybe you make a different movement to serve?
RAFAEL NADAL: No. I have been serving like this during the whole season. It was not a different movement at all. No, that's not -- that's not an issue. My personal opinion, no.

Last year, probably yes. When I came here, that was the first tournament that I changed a little bit the movement on the serve. When you change things, this kind of stuff can happen because is a risk and you involve different muscles.

But I am serving for this for one year, and I didn't expect no one issue of this, and I didn't have not one of those issues.

So I don't know. We can call unlucky, we can call different things, but it happened today. And when the things happen, the only thing that you can do is accept it. And even if it's a tough situation for me, I need to stay positive.

Have been a negative week at the end because finish out like this is always a very negative thing, but for the rest of the things of the week have been very positive. Good practices before tournament start, super good tennis during the whole tournament. From the crowd, I enjoyed a lot playing here in Bercy, after a while without being able to enjoy this atmosphere in this amazing stadium.

And I enjoyed playing good tennis. I have been playing three great matches, and I have been enjoying a lot being on court. So it's tough finish like this, this event. That's it. I need to accept and recover well mentally from that and physically.

And hopefully things will be better. I hope to be ready for London. That's the biggest goal now. But as I say before, I can't guarantee anything because just happened today.

So we need to wait hours to see exactly how big is the issue, because now we can't see exactly in the image yet. It's wait a little bit more, and then we'll have a better way to let us know what is going on.

Q. So sorry you got injured. We were looking forward to seeing you play. Will you go back home to Mallorca to have all the tests and recover or will you head to London or you don't know?
RAFAEL NADAL: I go back home. Nothing to do in London now, honestly. I have to be back home. I have to do what I have to do to check everything right. Not today. Not tomorrow. It needs to wait a couple of hours, as I say before, to be sure and to have a clear image.

Because on an injury on a muscle injury, the first few hours are so difficult to see because it's liquid there and it's difficult to see exactly how big is the issue, no? So need to wait this period of time to have a clear idea about what's going on.

I really hope it's nothing too big, and the doctors believe that it's nothing too big. But of course if it's big enough to not be 100% recovered for in one week, it's a chance. Hopefully is less than this.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297