Rafael Nadal Picture Credit: Twitter
Rafael Nadal bid farewell to the staff at Wimbledon after he was forced to retire from the event because of an abdominal tear he suffered during his five-set win over Taylor Fritz in the quarterfinal. In a video posted by the Wimbledon official Twitter account, the 22-time Grand Slam champion is seen bidding farewell to the staff at the club.
“Thank you so much. Hope to see you next year,” said Nadal, while posing for photos with the fans. “The communication is too late because even like that I was thinking the whole day about the decision to make but I think it don’t make sense to go, even if I tried a lot in my career to keep going. Very tough circumstances in that one I think it’s obvious if I keep going the injury is gonna get worse and worse,” he was quoted as saying by the English media.
“I made this decision because I can’t be competitive and win the next two matches. I don’t want to make things worse, but I am very sad. For respect to myself in some way I don’t want to go out there not be competitive enough to play at the level that I need to play to achieve my goal, and big chance to make the things much worse,” Rafael Nadal added.
Nick Kyrgios, Rafael Nadal's semi-final opponent, talked about how the Spaniard may feel after missing out on the semi-final. He said, “But, you know, it wouldn't have been easy for him to do that. I'm sure that a lot of his team members and himself, there would be a part of him that wanted to play, for sure. He barely lost a match this year. He wanted to probably go for all four. So it wouldn't be easy.”