Marion Bartoli believes that Rafael Nadal’s ultimate goal is to win one last French Open. Nadal, 36, met a devastating and heartbreaking end to his Australian Open campaign as a hip injury left him far from his best during his second-round loss to Mackenzie McDonald. Some fear that Nadal – who has had a lot of injury problems in recent years – is at his breaking point. “I think he has set himself an objective, to win one last Roland-Garros. The Roland-Garros that he won last year, in 2022, nobody thought he was going to win it. They told us that he could barely walk and that his footing was catastrophic. Although it will be difficult, on this surface he has the recipe and the magic formula to be ready. He doesn’t win Roland-Garros fourteen times without knowing how to be prepared. I think he will set this last term. And if he really sees that it doesn’t work, he can start thinking about the rest, which tournament he wants to play last,” Bartoli said on the Super Moscato Show, as revealed by We Love Tennis France. In his post-match press conference, Nadal looked visibly dejected and admitted to feeling “mentally devastated.” However, Nadal confirmed that he definitely plans to treat the injury and give tennis another chance. “It’s a very simple thing: I like what I do. I like to play tennis. I know it’s not forever. I like to feel competitive. I like to fight for the things I’ve been fighting for almost half my life or even more.”
Corretja speaks about Nadal
Tennis analyst and former player Alex Corretja spoke about Rafael Nadal: “We know that Rafa is going to try until the end of his career, whatever he feels. So I don’t necessarily feel that he’s going to retire after Roland Garros, he’s going to go day-by-day. He actually said on Eurosport in Spain something like ‘I’m going to continue until I see that I’m not going to be able to continue playing,” he told Eurosport. “So I don’t think it’s going to be the end of Rafa after Roland-Garros. Definitely when he’s got these injuries it is [a little] step back in his mind and he also needs to recover. But if it’s a short one I think it will give him like the hope to get ready again to hopefully have another chance to win another major – which might make a big difference on his career or not. Because at the end, when you’ve been winning so much, I don’t think we need to count on whether he wins more majors or not,” he expressed.
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