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Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion is having a troublesome year on the tennis circuit with a hip injury. Recently, he has turned down the opportunity to play in a challenger event in Bordeaux, which has raised further doubts on his potential participation in the French Open in just under a couple of weeks' time.
The tournament director of Bordeaux Open, Jean-Baptiste Perlant, who talked about the matter to the French sports daily L’Equipe said, “I offered him (Nadal’s agent Carlos Costa) one of the wildcards. He very kindly told me that Nadal was continuing his preparation at home in Manacor, that he was not ready and was in a race against time to be ready for the French Open.”
During the Australian Open at Melbourne Park in January, Rafael Nadal had suffered a hip injury while losing to Mackenzie McDonald in the second round. Since then, he has stayed on the sidelines and missed out on many premier tennis events in the 2023 calendar. In the last 3 months or so, he hasn’t taken part in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome, the last being the most recent tournament.
Last month, the 36-year-old released a statement about his recovery from the hip injury in which he said, “As you know I suffered a major injury in Australia, in the psoas. Initially it had to be a six-to-eight-week recovery period and we're on to number 14. The reality is that the situation is not what we had hoped for.”
The 14-time French Open champion, Rafael Nadal hasn’t missed the premier clay court tennis event, ever since he won it for the first time in 2005.
