Having announced last year that the 2024 season would likely be his final one as a professional, there had been high hopes that Nadal would enjoy a year-long farewell tour, but it appears that won’t be the case.
Nadal has not played competitive tennis since the Brisbane International in January as he has been struggling with a muscle problem. He was initially set to make his return at the Qatar Open before it was pushed back to the Indian Wells Open.
Despite coming through an exhibition match against Carlos Alcaraz in Las Vegas, Nadal then withdrew from the Indian Wells event and has also skipped this week’s Monte Carlo Masters.
Former world No 1 Roddick feels Nadal’s final year is eerily similar to Roger Federer’s farewell as the Swiss great was also unable to get a proper sendoff at one of his favourite tournaments due to injury.
During the Served with Andy Roddick podcast, the American said: “I have this hope in the back of my mind that he’s gonna get healthy and he doesn’t need to be healthy for 52 weeks, he needs to be healthy for two months. Like, just burn it, go all of it, take all of the painkillers that you need to take, and let’s do one more.
“I always kind of thought we were going to have some version of that, maybe not winning but imagine him winning third round at Roland Garros, a tough four-setter, the place falls apart like… I want that for him.
“[But] similar to Roger. Roger retired at Laver Cup – he probably wouldn’t say this out loud – but Roger wanted to retire at Wimbledon or US Open. He wanted to play those. He wanted to do that, he wanted to say goodbye, it happened in three days as opposed to three months. It feels like we’re getting closer to that being reality for Rafa.”
Following his withdrawal from the Monte Carlo event, Nadal stated that “my body simply won’t allow me” while his former coach and uncle Toni Nadal admitted recently that “he has discomfort when serving, otherwise he has no problems when training”.
READ MORE: Toni Nadal highlights the big ‘discomfort’ that is preventing Rafael Nadal from returning to action
Roddick highlighted that he had noticed Nadal’s struggles with his serve during the match against Alcaraz as he also revealed that “the back is the problem”.
He added: “When he [Nadal] was in Vegas, corners were tough. The biggest thing that I noticed, and it’s a tougher thing to observe with Rafa because it’s never been the thing that he hung his hat on, the serving was tough. The serving was bad! Action, pace, the second serve wasn’t kicking up and away, that is tough.
“The rumour is the back is the problem. We don’t know [if that is true], we find out a lot of these things after the fact. It makes me kind of sad.”
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