Rafael Nadal unstuck from the top ten – Newspaper Kommersant No. 36 (7481) of 03/02/2023

Former world number one Rafael Nadal, who continues to recover from an Australian Open injury, has announced that he will not be able to play at the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters 1000 starting next week in Indian Wells. This means that on March 20, the 36-year-old Spaniard will lose 600 ranking points awarded to him there last year for reaching the final, and for the first time since April 2005 will leave the top ten, in which he has been for almost 18 years in a row, which, apart from Nadal , was not possible for any other player.

Rafael Nadal’s decision, announced via social media, to pull out of the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami, back-to-back over the next four weeks, came as no big surprise. The fact that the Spaniard will almost certainly not be able to play in America in the spring became clear in the second half of January, when, after defeat in the 1/32 finals of the Australian Open from the American Mackenzie McDonald, he was diagnosed with damage to the iliopsoas muscle. It was then claimed that the veteran would need six to eight weeks to recover. Now he conducts only light workouts on a clay surface, dosing physical activity.

Thus, Nadal will not be able to defend not only the February 500 points awarded to him last year for winning the Mexican Acapulco, but also the March 600 points for reaching the final in Indian Wells.

This means that out of 3815 points that the Spaniard had after the end of the Australian Open, only 2715 points will remain on his account on March 20 and he will inevitably leave the top ten.

In other words, a unique period in terms of tennis statistics will end. The fact is that Nadal has been in the top 10 since April 25, 2005, that is, almost 18 years, and no other tennis player in the world can boast of such an achievement. For example, Roger Federer, who was in the top ten for 968 weeks in total, 58 more than Nadal, did not fall out of there for 14 years – from October 2002 to November 2016. Even more modest is the similar indicator of the current leader of men’s tennis Novak Djokovic, who, by the way, spends the 378th week as the leader of the ATP classification. He was in the top ten for a maximum of ten and a half years in a row – from March 2007 to November 2017.

In Nadal’s unique career, there have been breaks in performances due to injuries before, and much more protracted ones. For example, from June 2012 to February 2013, he did not play for more than seven months. However, at that time he had a huge supply of points scored on his favorite clay courts. Now Nadal does not have such a “safety cushion”, since in the first half of last year he performed in Europe not in the best way. In addition to 2 thousand points received for the triumph at Roland Garros, the Spaniard then scored only 180 points for reaching the quarterfinals in Madrid and another 90 points for the fourth round in Rome. The total is 2270. For comparison, we can recall that in 2012 Nadal earned a total of 4590 points on European soil, that is, twice as much.

Despite various speculations about the imminent end of his career, the 36-year-old Spaniard has no intention of leaving tennis yet.

In any case, by announcing his withdrawal from Indian Wells and Miami, he made it clear that he expected to face American fans in a summer series on hard, culminating in the US Open. But before that, Nadal plans to return to the crown ground and compete at Roland Garros, where he will attempt to win in Paris for the 15th time, taking the 23rd Grand Slam title. If he does this, he will again bypass Novak Djokovic in their number.

Evgeny Fedyakov