Nadal feared he wouldn’t play again
RAFAEL Nadal has revealed his foot injury last year was so bad he thought he might never play tennis again.
The Spanish great is chasing a men’s record 21st grand slam victory at the Australian Open, where he steamed into the fourth round with a fourset victory over Russian 28th seed Karen Khachanov.
Speaking after his 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 victory on Rod Laver Arena on Friday night, the 35year-old Spaniard laid bare the extent of the foot problem that ended his year on the tour in August.
Nadal suffers from MuellerWeiss syndrome, a degenerative disease that causes a deformity of one of the bones
in the central part of the foot. “First of all, everybody around me, me included of course, but everybody around me had a lot of doubts,” he said, asked if towards the end of last year he feared he might not make it to Melbourne.
“Not (only) about Australian Open, no, but about coming back on the tour because the foot was bothering a lot of days.
“Of course, still today are doubts because the foot, as I said the other day, it is an injury we cannot fix … so we need to find a way that the pain is under control to play, to keep playing. That’s the goal.”
Nadal, who has seen the draw open up for him with the deportation of defending champion Novak Djokovic, dropped a set for the first time this week against Khachanov.
But he called it his best performance since returning to the tour at the start of the year.
Nadal will face unseeded Frenchman Adrian Mannarino on Sunday in the last 16.
“It’s a very special week for me coming back from where I have been,” Nadal said.