A gutted Rafael Nadal says he is ‘destroyed mentally’ in the wake of his second-round exit from the Australian Open.
The reigning champion suffered a hip injury in the second set of his straight-sets loss to American Mackenzie McDonald, but battled on grimly for an hour after receiving treatment off-court.
He told reporters: “I can’t say that I’m not destroyed mentally at this time because I will be lying. It’s hard for me.”
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Nadal was hardly capable of moving around the court despite the treatment, and revealed he mulled retirement – but was motivated to finish the game given he was the tournament’s defending champion.
“I considered it all the time, stopping,” he said. “I just wanted to finish the match. That’s it … I didn’t want to retire, to be the defending champion here. I didn’t want to leave the court with a retirement.”
Nadal revealed he had been battling the injury for a ‘couple of days’, but said he had not experienced anything like the level of incapacity he suffered today.
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“I have been a couple of days like this. But nothing like today in that movement. I don’t know.”
“I don’t know if it’s muscle, if it’s joint. I have history in the hip, I have had issues. I have had to do treatments in the past, recently too. But it was not this amount of problem.”
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Disappointment was written plainly across Nadal’s face, but the 22-time grand slam champion was at a loss for words as he weighed a heartbreaking start to his 2023 campaign.
He added: “You can imagine (how disappointed I am). I don’t need to talk and explain the feelings. It is not the right moment to have something like this now. At the end, you need to keep going.
“Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes it is difficult to accept. Sometimes you feel super tired about all this stuff in terms of injuries.
“(I) can’t come here lying, saying that the life is fantastic.
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“It’s a tough moment, it’s a tough day. You need to accept that and keep going.”
The 36-year-old Spaniard was full of praise for his American rival, saying: “Mackenzie was playing at a great level of tennis. For a long time I was there, fighting for my chances… I was not doing that well and then at some point it was the end. That’s it.”
