After a nail-biting quarter-final victory over Taylor Fritz, Rafael Nadal booked himself a date with Nick Kyrgios in the Wimbledon 2022 semi-final. However, the 22-time Grand Slam champion isn’t sure if he would be able to participate in the penultimate match of the tournament.
Nadal had to grind against Fritz, with the match going into 5 sets. While it was the Spaniard who eventually emerged triumphant, for a big part of the contest, it looked like he would not be able to complete the match. Nadal himself admitted that he was on the brink of calling it quit, having struggled to get his body to cope with the demands of the game.
Ahead of the semi-final match-up against Kyrgios, Nadal has put his participation in doubt.
“I don’t know,” Nadal said when asked about his chances of playing the unseeded 27-year-old Kyrgios. “Honestly, I can’t give you a clear answer because if I gave you a clear answer and tomorrow another thing happens, I will be a liar.”
Nadal suffered an abdominal injury in the match against Fritz and even took a medical time out. He eventually pulled through to complete the match. He is now scheduled to get a few scans done on the injury before deciding whether he would be able to play against Kyrgios or not.
“I am used to holding pain and play with problems,” said Nadal, who played and won Roland Garros with pain-killing injections prior to each match and only confirmed his Wimbledon participation after radio frequency treatment eased pain in his foot. “Knowing that, when I feel something like I felt, that is because something is not going the proper way in abdomen. But let’s see. I had these feelings for a couple of days. Without a doubt, today was the worst day, has been an important increase of pain and limitation,” he said.
