Rafael Nadal to miss French Open, likely to retire in 2024

By OlympicTalkMay 18, 2023, 10:23 AM EDT

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Rafael Nadal said he will likely retire from professional tennis in the second half of 2024, plus he will miss Roland Garros this year for the first time in 19 years with a left hip flexor injury that has sidelined him from competition since January’s Australian Open.

“Next year, that’s probably going to be my last year in a professional tour,” Nadal said in a Thursday afternoon press conference in his native Mallorca. “That’s my idea, even that I can’t say 100 percent that’s going to be like this, because you never know what can happen, but my idea and my motivation is try to enjoy and try to say goodbye of all the tournaments that have been important for me in my tennis career.”

The French Open begins May 28 with coverage on NBC and Peacock.

Nadal, the record 14-time French Open champion, said he will stop playing tennis “for a while” due to his injury. He estimated it could be one and a half to four months.

“We were not able to find the solution to the problem that I had in Australia,” he said.

On Jan. 19, Nadal said the normal recovery time for the injury was six to eight weeks. But it has been prolonged for the 36-year-old.

This past Sunday, a French sports daily L’Equipe report quoted a tournament director saying that Nadal’s agent Carlos Costa said Nadal was in “a race against time” to be ready for the French Open, according to translations.

Nadal last missed the French Open in 2004, when he had a stress fracture in his left ankle as a 17-year-old who had already beaten Roger Federer.

In 2005, he made his French Open debut and won the title, the first of his men’s record-tying 22 Grand Slam singles crowns.

Nadal shares that record with Djokovic, a two-time French Open champion. The 35-year-old Serb can now break the tie in Paris without having to face Nadal, though top-ranked Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz may be the favorite.

Djokovic’s chances are better at July’s Wimbledon, where he has won seven times and will likely be an overwhelming favorite.

Nadal missed the other three majors on multiple occasions during an — increasingly in recent years — injury-riddled career.

He also endured physical anguish at the French Open, most notably withdrawing before his third-round match in 2016 with a left wrist injury. He is 112-3 in French Open matches.

Last year, he won the title with congenital, degenerative left foot pain that threatened his career. He received two pain-killing injections before each of his seven matches so that he played with no feeling in the foot.

Afterward, Nadal underwent a radio frequency injection on a foot nerve in an attempt to alleviate the problem and prolong his career. It worked. He reached last year’s Wimbledon semifinals before withdrawing from that event with an abdominal muscle tear.

He finished 2022 ranked No. 2 in the world behind Alcaraz. He has since fallen outside the top 10 for the first time since April 2005 due to being sidelined the last four months with the hip injury.

Nadal will drop out of the top 100 next month, the first time his ranking will be in the triple digits since April 2003.

After July’s Wimbledon, Nadal will be older than any previous Grand Slam singles champion.

Next year, Roland Garros will also host the Paris Olympic tennis competition. The two-time gold medalist Nadal said Thursday he hopes to take part.

While Nadal needs to be one of the four-highest ranked Spanish men after next year’s French Open for direct Olympic qualification in singles, he can, essentially, temporarily freeze his ranking in the top 20 if this injury causes him to miss at least six months.

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Iga Swiatek wins third French Open title, fourth Grand Slam, but this final was not easy

By OlympicTalkJun 10, 2023, 5:30 PM EDT

Iga Swiatek won her third French Open title and her fourth Grand Slam overall, pushed to a third set in a major final for the first time.

Swiatek, a 22-year-old Pole, outlasted unseeded Czech Karolina Muchova 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 on Saturday at Roland Garros. Muchova tested Swiatek, the only singles player in the Open Era to win their first seven major final sets. She became the first player to take a set off Swiatek in the tournament.

Swiatek looked en route to another major final sweep, up 3-0 in the second set. She then committed 11 unforced errors (versus four winners) over the rest of the set as Muchova rallied back (with 10 winners versus 11 unforced errors).

Muchova then won the first eight points of the third set. Swiatek, under the most pressure of her career on the sport’s biggest stages, passed the test. The players exchanged breaks of serve, and Muchova had another break point for a chance to serve for the championship, but Swiatek fended her off.

“After so many ups and downs, I kind of stopped thinking about the score,” Swiatek said. “I wanted to use my intuition more because I knew that I can play a little bit better if I’m going to get a little bit more loosened up.”

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

No woman lower than the 14th seed has beaten both world Nos. 1 and 2 at a Grand Slam since the WTA rankings began in 1975. Muchova, ranked 43rd, nearly pulled it off.

“The feeling is a little bitter because I felt it was very close,” she said. “But overall, I mean, to call myself Grand Slam finalist, it’s amazing achievement.”

The French Open finishes Sunday with the men’s final. Novak Djokovic faces Casper Ruud, eyeing a 23rd major title to break his tie with Rafael Nadal for the men’s singles record. NBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock air live coverage at 9 a.m. ET.

Go back to the fall 2020 French Open. Swiatek, a 54th-ranked teen, won the tournament without dropping a set for her first tour-level title.

Since, she climbed to the top of the rankings (and has stayed there for 62 weeks running), tied the longest WTA win streak in 32 years (37 matches in a row in 2022) and won majors on clay and hard courts.

She beat challengers from different categories in major finals: a Slam champ (Sofia Kenin), a teen phenom (Coco Gauff), an emerged rival (Ons Jabeur) and now an unseeded (because of injuries)-but-dangerous veteran in Muchova. Swiatek is the youngest woman to reach four major titles since Serena Williams in 2002.

Yet this French Open began with talk of a Big Three in women’s tennis rather than singular dominance. Since last year’s French Open, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka and Russian-born Kazakh Elena Rybakina both won their first major and beat Swiatek multiple times.

Swiatek faced neither in Paris but still called it “a pretty stressful tournament,” noting a right thing injury that forced her to retire during her last match before the tournament.

Sabalenka was stunned by Muchova in Thursday’s semifinals, the erratic serving and nerves of her past reappearing. Rybakina had to withdraw earlier in the tournament due to illness.

Next up: the grass court season and Wimbledon, where Swiatek hasn’t made it past the fourth round in three tries. She did win the 2018 junior title at the All England Club. but Sabalenka and Rybakina have had more recent success there.

If Swiatek can lift the Venus Rosewater Dish, she will be an Australian Open shy of a career Grand Slam. Her chances of adding an Olympic gold medal to that collection are very high, given Roland Garros hosts tennis at the 2024 Paris Games.

“I’m not setting these crazy records or goals for myself,” she said. “I know that keeping it cool is the best way to do it for me.”

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Novak Djokovic into French Open final with records at stake after beating Carlos Alcaraz

By OlympicTalkJun 10, 2023, 12:43 PM EDT

Novak Djokovic heads into Sunday’s French Open final with all sorts of history at stake after eliminating a cramping Carlos Alcaraz in a showdown semifinal.

Djokovic faces Casper Ruud, eyeing a 23rd major title to break his tie with Rafael Nadal for the men’s singles record. NBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock air live coverage at 9 a.m. ET.

On Friday, Djokovic took out the top seed Alcaraz 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, but the match was even when Alcaraz began showing signs of right leg cramping. The 20-year-old Spaniard attributed it to the “tension” of the match, saying he was nervous for his first time facing Djokovic at a major.

“I have never felt something like I did today,” he said, adding that it was full-body cramps. “If someone says that he get into the court with no nerves playing against Novak, he lies.”

Alcaraz stopped play at 1-all in the third set and had trouble walking. He forfeited the next game, stipulated by the rules for receiving medical treatment for severe muscle cramping when not at a change of ends or end of a set.

Djokovic then won the next nine games. Alcaraz played with limited mobility and without the charismatic magic that’s charmed the tennis world.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

“First and foremost, I have to say tough luck for Carlos. I feel for him. I feel sorry,” Djokovic said to begin an on-court interview. “I told him at the net he knows how young he is. He’s got plenty of time ahead of him, so he’s going to win this tournament, I’m sure, many, many times.”

Djokovic was told of Alcaraz’s reasoning for the cramps.

“I have experienced that several times,” he said. “Early in my career I was struggling quite a bit physically. I can understand the emotions and circumstances that affect you mentally and emotionally.”

The semi was billed as perhaps the greatest inter-generational match in men’s tennis history, the first time that Alcaraz played a member of the Big Three at a major.

Their 16-year age gap was the largest to take place for men this deep in a major since the 1991 U.S. Open (Jim Courier d. Jimmy Connors) and the largest age gap for any major match between Slam champs since 2006 Wimbledon (Rafael Nadal d. Andre Agassi).

Unlike Friday, most of the previous torch-passing meetings took place when one man was not yet at his peak or the other was past his prime.

Typically, the younger player wins these types of duels. Djokovic, by prevailing over a foe 16 years younger this late in a major, broke the Open Era men’s age gap record of 14-plus years set by Roger Federer, who beat Hyeon Chung at the 2018 Australian Open.

Now, Djokovic heads to Sunday’s final as an overwhelming favorite against the Norwegian Ruud, a 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 winner over German Alexander Zverev in the later semifinal. Ruud was runner-up to Nadal at last year’s French Open and runner-up to Alcaraz at last year’s U.S. Open.

Djokovic can become the first man to win all four majors at least three times. He can break Nadal’s record as the oldest French Open singles champion.

“I’ve been very fortunate that most of the matches in tournaments I’ve played in the last few years, there is history on the line,” he said. “The motivation is very high, as you can imagine.”

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