Rafa Nadal passed through the microphones of the program Radioestadio Noche de Onda Cero this Thursday to review the current tennis. The Balearic tennis player, who this Friday will face Karen Khachanov for a place in the round of 16, analyzed how he is recovering from his injury and also about the Djokovic case and the progress of the pandemic.
Nadal confessed that he is slowly recovering from his foot injury. “Things are going quite well, if we take into account where we come from. I can compete and, from there, I hope to take steps forward and be a little better every day. Since confinement I have had many foot problems and that does not allow me to have continuity and that is why I have not been able to play tournaments in a row”
The Balearic assured that he had a hard time recovering and that he is aware that the injury will not go away, but that he will do everything possible to let him compete. “2020 was a good year and in 2021 I started with problems. In the middle of the season I had to stop playing. There have been many months of uncertainty and suffering. When you have pain and you can’t train, everything gets more complicated. And in those difficult moments I try put in the balance the good things that have happened to me during this time. For months the scaphoid has hurt me in a way that has kept me from playing tennis. Thats the reality. The injury is not and will not be forgotten because it is a chronic injury that has no solution and I try to live with it. The objective is that the foot allows me to compete with little limitation. I don’t need to play tennis to be happy, outside of it I’m very happy. Simply when you are with your daily work and you can’t improve, of course you have more ups and downs.”
Nadal also made reference to the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic after passing the disease and assures that there have been many people who have had a much worse time than him. “Speaking of harshness with what we are going through seems even ridiculous to me with so many people who have lost so many things and, above all, so many human lives. Hard is so many people who have lost relatives in hospitals without being able to say goodbye. Mine is minute sin . At a sports level it is hard because in the end there are many months that you wake up every day with the illusion of working and the improvement that you see many times is almost nil. Mentally you enter doubts and disappointments. You have to live with it, with the people, the family and the team at your side”.
The Spanish tennis player also wanted to comment on Novak Djokovic and his opposition to vaccines, assuring that, without them, the death toll would be much higher. “Djokovic’s opinion, compared to mine, shows that we are in quite distant positions. There are the numbers and they say that a lot of people have died. The vaccine thing has gone very fast. I don’t have all the information, but I understand that there are people who have doubts about the side effects that vaccination can have. We do not know 100%, but what we do know 100% are the effects of the virus and if we had kept up the pace before the vaccines, the death toll would be very high. The rest is speculation, but I respect any opinion.”
Nadal also joined the debate about the possibility that Djokovic cannot play in several tournaments if he is not vaccinated and recommends that he follow the rules of each country. “Whether Djokovic plays or not in Madrid is not a sporting debate. I want and wish that Novak plays in most places and in the most important tournaments, since they increase their relevance when the best compete in them. But we are talking about an issue that goes far beyond sports, we are talking about a global health issue. Each country has its rules and, in these difficult times, we have to follow them.”