Rafa Nadal’s 23 seasons as a professional (since 2001) allow for a detailed map of his injuries, the other side of his brilliant career, in which he has won 92 ATP titles (including 22 Grand Slam). The tennis player from Manacor, who this Friday announced his return to the competition on January 31 in Brisbane, after 11 months out, will have reappeared in these 23 years on 16 occasions, after leaving behind the same number of serious or serious injuries. .
Injuries that have been a torture in his career: they have cost him no less than 58.5 months of sick leave; That is, almost five years of absence from the slopes. The longest absence has been the current one, 11 months (since January 18, when she lost in the Australian Open in the second round with McKenzie McDonald), due to the iliopsoas injury and operation.
Although, until now, the longest injury had been in 2012 due to a rupture of the knee tendon and hoffitis that kept him out for 7 months (he missed the London Games when he was going to be the Spanish flag bearer, and did not reappear until 2013), Nadal always considered his worst season to be 2015: his injury was not physical, but mental, as he developed anxiety and a loss of confidence due to the succession of ailments.
