Rafael Nadal withdrew from the Monte Carlo Masters, where he was expected to make a comeback.© AFP
Rafael Nadal withdrew from the Monte Carlo Masters on Thursday, where the 22-time Grand Slam winner was expected to make his ATP Tour comeback. “Unfortunately I have to say that I will not play in Monte Carlo. My body simply does not allow it,” the 37-year-old Spaniard said on social media. The record 11-time Monte Carlo winner missed virtually all of the 2023 season due to injury and only played at the Brisbane International this season, where he felt a flare-up of a hip injury.
He lost to Carlos Alcaraz in an exhibition in Las Vegas in March before withdrawing from the Indian Wells Masters, where he had first planned to make his comeback.
“Even though I work hard and give the maximum effort every day with all the will to play again and compete in tournaments that have been very important to me, the truth is that I cannot play today,” Nadal continued.
“You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to be able to play these events.
“All I can do is accept the situation and try to look at the near future, keeping the excitement and the will to play so that I have a chance for things to get better.”
The Clay Court specialist has fallen to 646th in the ATP rankings and would need to use a protected ranking of ninth to advance to the main draw in Monte Carlo, the first Clay Court Masters 1000 event of the 2024 season.
The last of Nadal’s eleven victories in the Principality came in 2018, falling in the semi-finals in 2019, the quarter-finals in 2021 and missing the 2020, 2022 and 2023 editions.
He would use Monte Carlo as a springboard to perhaps his last ever French Open, a Grand Slam event he has won a record fourteen times.
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