Rafael Nadal pulled out of Wimbledon one day before he was due to be in the semifinals, because of a torn abdominal muscles.
“Unfortunately, you can see, it’s because of the tournament that I am here,” Nadal stated during Thursday’s news conference at The All England Club.
Nick Kyrgios, the 22-time Grand Slam champion, was set to take on the 22-time Grand Slam champ for a berth at Friday’s final.
Kyrgios reached his first final at a major tournament. On Sunday, he will play either Novak Djokovic nor Cam Norrie in the final.
Second-seeded Nadal (36-year-old Spaniar) is 19-0 in Grand Slam play in 2022. He also won trophies at both the Australian Open and French Open. He is now halfway to a Grand Slam in a calendar year for the first time ever in his career. Nadal was suffering from stomach pain for around a week. The pain got almost unbearable during the first set of his 4 hour, 21 minute victory against Taylor Fritz in the tiebreaker on Wednesday. Nadal admitted that he thought about quitting after the match. Nadal took a medical break to take painkillers pills. His father and sister moved him from the stands to quit.
Nadal practiced a little bit at the All England Club on Thursday, his off-day. Nadal signed up to practice on one of the competition courts, but he didn’t show up. Instead, he chose to practice on practice courts that fans don’t have access to. Nadal was content to just hit backhands and forehands. However, he did attempt to serve a few times — which was the part of his game that showed the most inability to play full force and caused him the most discomfort against Fritz. These practice serves were tapped in by Nadal’s standards and not with the usual body-torqueing effort that he normally uses. This is not dissimilar to what happened to Nadal at Roland Garros. He took multiple injections to relieve chronic pain in his left leg and claimed he didn’t know when he would be unable to play on the court.
