The year 2024 hasn’t even started yet and it’s already offering us a gift we no longer dare believe. Even the announcement of the main interested party, a month ago, did not completely succeed in convincing us. At that age, with such a background, you can never be sure of anything. But no, it wasn’t just an illusion, Rafael Nadal is present in Brisbane this Sunday, for his big return to competition at the age of 37 after almost an entire year off the circuit.
We left the Spaniard with his head down and his gait unsteady on January 18, rinsed in three sets by the American Mackenzie McDonald in the second round of the Australian Open. It was no longer the foot that was the problem, nor the knee or the shoulder, but the hip, bruised by inflammation in the iliopsoas tendon. A first operation, then a second in June, left doubts lingering. The image of Rafa on his hospital bed on a date when we were used to seeing him blowing out his candles like a monarch at Roland-Garros had almost resigned everyone.
Uncertainty
Yes, but the man with 22 Grand Slam titles did not want to leave the big world like that, on a stretcher. And then he simply still wants to play. Even if it will be complicated to once again reach the heights he has so often tasted, he is well aware of it. “I will not win more Grand Slam tournaments than Novak [Djokovic]but I will have the chance to have fun again,” he said in mid-November, as his return began to take shape.
We didn’t imagine him, anyway, amassing two or three more major tournaments to get back into the race for the GOAT. To be honest, a gradual build-up to an epic journey at Roland-Garros at the end of spring would be more than enough for our happiness – and certainly that of many –, just to bring a unique odyssey to a fitting close Porte d ‘Auteuil, started in 2005. “The operation he underwent cannot allow him to return to his previous physical capacities, it aims above all to bring him a little comfort in the short term, explains Doctor Arnaud Clavé, orthopedic surgeon, specialist in particular in the hip. Afterwards, the result is unpredictable. »
Rafael Nadal, the first, has no idea what it will be like once he returns to the court. “There are many possibilities: that it’s my last year, that it’s only half a year, that I ultimately won’t be able to make it,” he said again last month. These are things I don’t have the capacity to answer at the moment. » But one thing is certain, he worked hard to earn the right to believe it.
On December 18, finally reassured that his foal was fit to leave for Australia, Carlos Moya returned on the ATP website on Rafa’s healing process and (very) gradual return to tennis. “A really tortuous path,” said the Spaniard, who took over from Uncle Toni in 2017. “After the operation, we didn’t see him for a month and a half because he went on vacation. He was doing his rehabilitation as best as possible. And then, at the end of August, we started training again but lightly: twenty minutes, two days a week. The improvement was very slow. Sometimes you had to take a break and then get back to it. We were very careful. At the beginning, it was obviously very difficult, especially when we saw that he was not progressing at all. »
” He is in shape “
But it is not in Rafa’s nature to give up along the way, we have understood this well over the years with this furious madman returning from 13 significant injuries in his career, since the very first at the elbow in 2003. “Gradually, we increased the volume and intensity, but always following a careful plan. Sometimes we still had to slow down, take a break. But that’s the process for an injury of this seriousness, with a player who is no longer 20 years old, continued Carlos Moya. Little by little, we managed to progress. The problems gradually resolved themselves, and now it is almost ready. »
An observation apparently shared by Gabriel Debru, Arthur Fils and Richard Gasquet, the three French people who were able to hit the ball with the Majorcan in recent weeks. “He is in good shape, working really seriously, and from what I understand, he has not lost too much physically,” Philippe Weiss, who looks after the interests, slips with a smile. of the last two named. Implied, it hit hard and these little training sessions were nothing like a health walk facing a player on a gentle slope towards retirement, slippers within reach.
If Nadal comes back, it’s not for nothing. Son spent a little over a week in Nadal’s academy in Kuwait, then Gasquet took over for a few days, this time in Mallorca.
The Frenchman, who has not taken a set from the Spaniard in an official match since the Jurassic era, won two sets out of three during an epic 3h15 session, a sign that there is a little work to be done, anyway. “It’s complicated to know if he will win Roland-Garros again. I’ve no idea, testified Ritchie in the Team. . You don’t know where this will lead. Nobody knows it, he himself doesn’t know it. What I know is that he’s giving himself the chance to play at the highest level again and that’s great for tennis. It’s Nadal! There is no one like him on the circuit anymore. We need him to come back, to choose when to stop. And that he still plays matches which he has the secret to, that he shows what makes him a tennis legend. »
On the morning of his return, we must bear in mind that the challenge is immense. “It would have been someone other than Nadal, I would have said that there would be no point in taking the racket again,” insists Doctor Clavé, who has operated on numerous high-level athletes. Here we are on a completely unusual profile, so we can hope, even if the probability that it can return to its highest level is low, or almost zero. Afterwards, over a few matches, a few tournaments, he will manage to shine. He will compensate for his physical deficit with other things, his desire, his extraordinary mentality. » As he always did, in fact.