Rafael Nadal confirms Wimbledon plans as he issues update on foot injury
- Michael Graham
- 7 June 2022
Rafael Nadal says he wants to play Wimbledon - as long as he actually can.
Rafael Nadal will have injections in his foot before deciding whether or not to play Wimbledon, he has confirmed.
Nadal won his 14th French Open title last week, beating Casper Ruud in straight sets to secure a record-extending 22nd major.
After also winning the Australian Open at the start of the year, Nadal is now halfway to a calendar Grand Slam.
However, he was playing with severe pain injury at Roland Garros, and had to have his whole foot anaesthetised at one point to get him through the tournament.
He leaves Paris still searching for a solution, but he says he will play Wimbledon if his next planned treatment is successful.
"I'm going to be in Wimbledon if my body is ready to be in Wimbledon," Nadal promised. "That's it."
READ MORE: Which players will miss Wimbledon and will Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Serena Williams play?
Nadal's foot injury kept him out for a large part of last season, and it's a chronic degenerative issue he has suffered with all of his career.
That makes it, he explains, something far bigger than just his tennis career.
"It's obvious that with circumstances that I am playing [with], I can't and I don't want to keep going, so the mindset is very clear," he said.
"I was able to play during these two weeks with extreme conditions. I have been playing with injections on the nerves. That's why I was able to play during these two weeks, because I have no feeling in my foot.
"Everybody knows how much this tournament means to me, so I wanted to keep trying and to give myself a chance here. But it's obvious that I can't keep competing with the foot asleep.
"So that's the thing that we are planning to do the next week. It's going to be a radiofrequency injection on the nerve to try to burn the nerve a little bit and create the impact that I have now on the nerve for a long period of time.
"That's what we are going to try. If that works, I'm going to keep going. If not then it's going to be another story. And then I'll ask myself if I am ready to do a major thing, a major surgery that doesn't guarantee me to be able to be competitive again take a long time to be back."
"Hopefully it works and can take it out a little bit the pain that I have. If that happens, let's see if I am able to keep going for the grass season."
Rafael Nadal has won Wimbledon twice before but the last of those came 12 years ago in 2012. He has not even played the tournament since 2019.
