(Reuters) -Rafa Nadal has suffered a stress fracture in his rib and will likely be out for up to six weeks, the Spaniard’s crew stated on Tuesday.
Nadal, the winner of 21 Grand Slam singles titles, complained of a chest concern throughout his run to the ultimate of the ATP 1000 occasion in Indian Wells, California final week.
Upon his arrival in Spain on Tuesday, Nadal visited his medical crew in Barcelona for exams which revealed “a stress fracture of the third left costal arch”.
“This just isn’t excellent news and I didn’t anticipate this,” Nadal stated in a press release despatched by his crew.
“I’m dissatisfied and unhappy as a result of after a very good begin to the season I used to be coming to an important a part of the 12 months with excellent emotions and good outcomes.
“I’ve at all times had that spirit of preventing and ….I’ll… work onerous (for) my restoration.”
Nadal’s harm occurred throughout his three-set semi-final victory over teenaged compatriot Carlos Alcaraz however he nonetheless performed the ultimate in which he went down to American Taylor Fritz – his first loss in the season after 20 consecutive wins.
His physician stated that the 35-year-old will likely be out of motion for “4 to six weeks”, ruling him out of subsequent month’s Monte Carlo Masters and placing doubts over his participation in the ATP 1000 occasions in Madrid and Rome in May.
The French Open, the 12 months’s second main at Roland Garros the place Nadal has received a document 13 titles, is scheduled to begin from May 22.
Nadal began the 2022 season unprepared and with uncertainty looming over him due to a foot downside that pressured him to miss a piece of the 2021 season together with Wimbledon, the Olympics and the U.S. Open.
After struggling a bout of COVID-19 earlier than arriving in Melbourne in January, Nadal stated he had even thought of retiring when the foot downside that has troubled him all through his profession resurfaced final 12 months.
But that didn’t cease the left-hander from successful three consecutive titles in 2022, together with the Australian Open that helped him to improve his main haul to 21 and take sole possession of the boys’s document he had beforehand shared with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly, further reporting by Anita Kobylinska in Gdansk; Editing by Catherine Evans and Pritha Sarkar)
