Will Nadal ever be able to play a few tournaments in a row without getting injured?

S

StrongRule

Talk Tennis Guru
Nadal's career is just full of different injuries. You just know he can withdraw from any tournament and at any moment. As an example, in 2018 he played just 9 tournaments during the year and withdrew during 2 of them. Skipped everything after USO. Now, in 2019 he withdrew in IW, Miami, Cincinnati, Shanghai, Paris and WTF. Talking about WTF, this is the SIXTH TIME in this decade when he skips it. I wonder how can people bash him for never winning WTF if he never even PLAYS it.

The main problem is that Nadal was perfectly healthy in his first 3 matches in Paris, he had no health issues at all. And now again we get a repeat of RG 2016...He can withdraw at any moment, when you don't even expect that. Federer and Djokovic fans should really appreciate the fact that their favorite players never get injured and always play everything they want to play, hardly withdrawing. Being a Nadal fan is much harder, it's not even close. Will he ever be able to play at least half a year without getting injured, or is his career coming to an end?
 
If you take a look at the past year or so, Fed nor Rafa (except clay) really have played consistent tennis at several tourneys in a row.

this is what happens at their age. They can still play their best and push through during the biggest tourneys, just not consecutively.

Only Djoker has kind of been able to do it, but even he has shown this less this year.

This is fact that the big 3 are slowing down as they age, but they can still play their best tennis, just less often.
 
Nadal's competitive spirit:

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Nadal's body:

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StrongRule said:
Nadal's career is just full of different injuries. You just know he can withdraw from any tournament and at any moment. As an example, in 2018 he played just 9 tournaments during the year and withdrew during 2 of them. Skipped everything after USO. Now, in 2019 he withdrew in IW, Miami, Cincinnati, Shanghai, Paris and WTF. Talking about WTF, this is the SIXTH TIME in this decade when he skips it. I wonder how can people bash him for never winning WTF if he never even PLAYS it.

The main problem is that Nadal was perfectly healthy in his first 3 matches in Paris, he had no health issues at all. And now again we get a repeat of RG 2016...He can withdraw at any moment, when you don't even expect that. Federer and Djokovic fans should really appreciate the fact that their favorite players never get injured and always play everything they want to play, hardly withdrawing. Being a Nadal fan is much harder, it's not even close. Will he ever be able to play at least half a year without getting injured, or is his career coming to an end?
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He has a bone disorder as well. That makes it even harder. The last only times he has been pretty much healthy barring the odd blip is 2006-2007 and then 2010 and 2013 and 2015. Every other year has had some sort of extended break or serious injury.
 
I find the fact that Nadal is so often either injured or resting to avoid risking injury to be unsurprising. He plays a tough sport so physically, tearing up the court with his movement, swinging with an extreme grip, practicing like a madman and so on, that to me, it's only flesh, and injury would be the norm.

If a player were healthy for years playing this way, or playing any sport any way, that is what would require explaining. How did the player manage that? Hardly anybody plays for very long without injury or exhaustion or just resting. The tour schedule is also designed for players who play and lose early -- 'This week ended before Wednesday, but I play again next Monday, so I have all of those days off in between'. Winning almost every match is not sustainable and requires rest periods of increasing length as a player gets past roughly age 27.
 
bjsnider said:
I find the fact that Nadal is so often either injured or resting to avoid risking injury to be unsurprising. He plays a tough sport so physically, tearing up the court with his movement, swinging with an extreme grip, practicing like a madman and so on, that to me, it's only flesh, and injury would be the norm.

If a player were healthy for years playing this way, or playing any sport any way, that is what would require explaining. How did the player manage that? Hardly anybody plays for very long without injury or exhaustion or just resting. The tour schedule is also designed for players who play and lose early -- 'This week ended before Wednesday, but I play again next Monday, so I have all of those days off in between'. Winning almost every match is not sustainable and requires rest periods of increasing length as a player gets past roughly age 27.
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This year and since 2017 he has cut down on that he has been serving so well this week and has been shortening points since Moya came yet he keeps getting hurt. And he has been mangaging his body well in the last few years by pulling out of events. I didnt expect him to pull out of Paris like that.
 
daggerman said:
If you play like every point is your last, and you practice like you play, you're going to get injured frequently. Pretty simple.

This is the tradeoff he signed up for. I think he's ok with it.
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He doesn't fight every point nowadays. Usually if it's 30-0 on opponent's serve, he tanks the last 2 points. It is a necessary thing for him to do these days, father time is undefeated. It isn't what made me a fan of his, but if he is still winning slams, I deal with it fine.
 
Nadal switching to a hyper aggressive style of play is because he knows his body will give up on him if he grinds any longer. Nadal's body is breaking down. But he's doing a damn fine job of scheduling for the last couple of years and that has helped his longevity. Nadal will never be the physical beast he once was, playing every tournament under the sun, grinding it out for hours together. But his scheduling had been so good that he's peaking at the exact right tournaments (Slams) without overplaying. I don't know what you're complaining about. What matters are slams. And he's been healthy for all the slams in the past 3 years.
 
To be honest it's very strange that Nadal withdraws from tournaments just because he felt something during practice. Federer or Djokovic would never do that.
 
Krish0608 said:
Nadal switching to a hyper aggressive style of play is because he knows his body will give up on him if he grinds any longer. Nadal's body is breaking down. But he's doing a damn fine job of scheduling for the last couple of years and that has helped his longevity. Nadal will never be the physical beast he once was, playing every tournament under the sun, grinding it out for hours together. But his scheduling had been so good that he's peaking at the exact right tournaments (Slams) without overplaying. I don't know what you're complaining about. What matters are slams. And he's been healthy for all the slams in the past 3 years.
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Yeah, because he never withdrew from AO and USO in 2018.
 
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