Rafael Nadal must spare his body. – Michel Euler / AP / SIPA
Living legends don’t age well. For years, RodGER has skipped a good part of the season on gravel to spare his knees, including this year when he arrived at Porte d’Auteuil almost without having played. For the oldest member of the tennis golden triangle, we had made up our minds. But for the failure to come from Rafa, the brazen colossus of plundered brick courts, it does a little something.
Now that his statue is seated in Roland, he has become human again. On his social networks, the man with 13 Parisian titles announced his package for Wimbledon, on a grass that is not very favorable to him anyway, as well as for the Tokyo Olympics. A decision dictated by the need to “let your body recover”.
Hi all, I have decided not to participate at this year’s Championships at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Tokyo. It’s never an easy decision to take but after listening to my body and discuss it with my team I understand that it is the right decision
– Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) June 17, 2021
“The goal is to extend my career and to continue to do what makes me happy, that is to say to play at the highest level”, specifies the 35-year-old player, in a speech that looks a bit like that by Federer. Nadal begins to seriously pull on his body to extend the course of his career. Play longer, even if it means playing more rarely. The twilight of the Gods.