It seems oddly appropriate that, at a time when his career was all at sea, Rafael Nadal sought solace on the ocean.
At the end of June, a few weeks after undergoing surgery on the hip muscle he tore at the Australian Open, Nadal boarded his luxury 80ft yacht, the Great White, for a five-week family cruise around the Greek islands.
It was a break that harked back to the long, lazy days Nadal once enjoyed on his father’s boat as a child. It was also, to judge from the Spaniard’s interviews this week with Movistar+ and Diario AS, an opportunity for reflection – about the uncertainties of the future, the challenges of the present, and his place in the history of the game.
“The operation went well, but the time is long,” Nadal told AS. “I have been on vacation for five weeks with only the gym. I needed to disconnect a little bit from everything. The sea disconnects me.
“It has always been my escape route. What happens [differently] is that before I did it for a few days, and now it has been five weeks. I haven’t been paying attention to my cell phone or anything.”
With his rehabilitation at an early stage, Nadal’s summer meanderings offered an escape, but little by way of clarity. He still hopes to return to the tour next year for what he has indicated will probably be his final season, but cannot be sure his body will allow it. Equally, should things go better than expected, Nadal does not rule out the possibility of continuing beyond 2024. Ever the realist, the 37-year-old does not expect to add to his haul of 22 grand slams, but acknowledges the situation could change. The only certainty is that there is no certainty.
“I would like to play again and be competitive again, but the dream is not to come back and win Roland Garros or win Australia, so that people don’t get confused,” said Nadal, who won both titles last year while also enduring a litany of physical setbacks that included a chronic foot injury, a cracked rib and a pair of debilitating muscle tears.
“I am very aware that at the time I am in my life, all that is very far away. I don’t say it’s impossible, because in the end – [and] I have said it a thousand times – all things in sport, they change very quickly.
“I maintain that possibly 2024 is my last year, but I can’t confirm it. I don’t know, there is a good chance that it will be like this, because I see how my body is. But I don’t know how I will be in three or four months.
“My hope is in mid-November to know how I really am. I will analyse my roadmap from there. The ideal is to play to try to compete at the highest level, and if that happens I will try to use it for the tournaments that interest me the most. I live the day with the hope of being able to decide. I’m working, and then my physique and my head will tell me.”
For the moment, that work is limited to three 40-minute sessions a week on court, where his movement remains restricted. Meanwhile, Nadal continues to work hard on his rehabilitation in the gym, although his longstanding struggle with Mueller Weiss syndrome, a rare degenerative disease that causes pain in the navicular bone of his left foot, is far from over.
“There are times when the foot does not let me live in peace, it is difficult for me to even go down the stairs, and that happens sometimes,” said Nadal. “If it hurts, it is difficult to be happy. My character changes when it hurts more than necessary.”
While Nadal has been languishing on the side-lines, Novak Djokovic has made hay, claiming the Spaniard’s Australian and French Open titles before defeating Daniil Medvedev in the US Open final to equal Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 majors.
Nadal acknowledges that the Serbian world No 1 must now be regarded as the best male player in history, and refuses to be bitter about the injuries that have prevented him from competing in 18 grand slam events over the course of his career, rendering him “one of the most inactive players on the circuit for many years”.
“I think the numbers are the numbers and the statistics are the statistics, and in that sense, I think he has better numbers than mine and that is indisputable,” said Nadal. “The rest are tastes, inspiration, sensations that one or the other [player] can transmit to you, that you may like one or the other more.
“I think that with regard to titles, Djokovic is the best in history and there is nothing to discuss. Then, as always, everyone can combine the story as they please, say that I have suffered many injuries. Bad luck for me or bad luck that I have had the body in this way. He has had another one, and that is also part of the sport.
“I congratulate him for everything he is achieving, and that does not cause me any kind of frustration. I said it when I was the one who won the most slams, I said it when we were tied, and I say it now that I’m behind. I’m not going to be the one who tries, through a personal struggle, to want to be what I am not. What is, is – and what is not, is not. I say this very satisfied with everything I have done.”
That satisfaction will only grow should Nadal realise his ambition of competing at next year’s Paris Olympics, where the tennis event will be held at Roland Garros. The Spaniard won a gold medal in singles in 2008 in Beijing and a gold in doubles alongside Marc López at Rio 2016, and said he would be motivated by the prospect of forming a doubles partnership with Carlos Alcaraz.
“On a personal level, I would like to play [the Olympics] once again,” said Nadal. “Everyone knows that I have always been a lover of the Games. I have lived incredible moments of coexistence, of seeing what sport is in pure essence.
“About the fact of playing doubles with Carlos, I haven’t had the slightest conversation with him in that sense. But I would also like to, and it would be a good motivation, one more incentive for me to be able to close my Olympic cycle by playing with Carlos, with everything he is achieving, with the young people and with the great future that lies ahead.”