Tennis star from Spain falls back injured in the world rankings
Still ambitious on the tennis court: Rafael Nadal
Image: picture alliance / AA
Injuries, chronic pain, injections: Without torment, Rafael Nadal could never have stayed in the top ten for 912 weeks. Now he’s moving backwards. But he wants to go back. Hotshot.
Man does not have to find everything that is good Rafael Nadal does. During his tennis career, the Spaniard pushed his body to the limit – despite inflamed tendons in his knees, recurring injuries to the wrist, hip, abdominal muscles and back, despite chronically diseased bone tissue in his foot.
In order to compete (and win) at the French Open last year, Nadal had his foot injected daily with anesthetics. As I said, you don’t have to approve of this self-flagellation.
But without such torment, Nadal could never have stayed in the top ten in the world for 912 straight weeks, far longer than any other man. When he first showed up there on April 25, 2005 Gerhard Schröder Chancellor and Benedict XVI. newly elected pope. Facebook was a year old, the first video was just visible on YouTube.
Now, almost 18 years later, Nadal will drop out of the top ten; because he cannot defend his world ranking points from March 2022 due to a hip injury. But Nadal will soon take the next attempt back forward, as an almost 37-year-old. Hotshot.
