Rafael Nadal has not competed since January because of a hip injury. He is expected to announce Thursday whether that absence will include the French Open, a tournament he has won a record 14 times.
Nadal’s manager, Benito Perez-Barbadillo, said Wednesday
that Nadal would speak to the media at his tennis academy in Manacor, Spain,
“about his participation in Roland Garros.”
Nadal has never missed the French Open since winning the
title there when he made his debut in 2005.
Several sports outlets based in Spain said Wednesday that
Nadal would not be competing at the the clay-court Grand Slam tournament in
Paris, where main-draw play begins May 28. None of the reports cited a specific
source.
Nadal has been sidelined since hurting his left hip flexor
during a second-round loss at the Australian Open on Jan. 18. An MRI exam the
next day revealed the extent of the injury, and Perez-Barbadillo said at the
time that Nadal was expected to need up to two months to fully recover.
He initially aimed to return at the Monte Carlo Masters in
March on his beloved red clay, but he wasn’t able to play there, then
subsequently sat out tournament after tournament, decreasing the likelihood
that he would be fully fit in time for the French Open.
But for Nadal, missing other tournaments does not resonate
the way missing the French Open would.
He is 112-3 across 18 appearances there, a level of
dominance unmatched by any man or woman at any Grand Slam event in the long
annals of a sport that dates to the 1800s. When Nadal won the trophy in Paris
last year at age 36 while dealing with chronic foot pain, he became the oldest
champion in tournament history.
Nadal is just 1-3 this season. He has dropped seven of his
past nine matches overall, dating to a fourth-round loss to Frances Tiafoe in
the U.S. Open’s fourth round last September. -AP
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