Rafael Nadal is set to skip the US Open, and won’t be playing any more tournaments in 2021: the world number four has just announced on Twitter that a left foot injury is the reason behind his choice. The 20-time Slam champion has a chronic issue in that foot since 2005, but things appeared to go downhill during the 2021 French Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic.
This is hardly a surprising piece of news, since, after losing in the third round in Washington, Nadal dropped out of the Masters 1000 events in Toronto and in Cincinnati. He will therefore follow in Roger Federer and Dominic Thiem’s footsteps – both the Swiss and the Austrian elected to miss the remainder of the 2021 season.
Rafa first announced his decision in a Twitter thread:
Here’s what he wrote:
“Hello everyone, I wanted to let you know that unfortunately I will have to end my 2021 season. For the past year I have been suffering from a foot injury, and I need to take some time off. I took this decision after talking to my family and my team, and I believe it’s the best course of action in order to achieve a full recovery. This year, I had to renounce to some events that are very important to me, such as Wimbledon, the Olympics, and now the US Open, because I couldn’t train and compete in the way I would have liked to.
“I reached the conclusion that I need time to recover and that I need to change something in my preparation, because this isn’t a new injury, I have been suffering from this since 2005, although it didn’t prevent me from having a long professional career. Things haven’t been working for a while, so I need to find a new way to treat this problem and find a solution, so that I can keep playing over the next few years. I have the right amount of enthusiasm that I need to return to top form, as well as to compete for the most important events. I will work hard every day to be able to achieve this result.”
He later recorded a video as well:
THE RANKING SITUATION
This is the eleventh time that Nadal misses a Major since the 2004 French Open, but he had never missed the same one twice in a row. Currently, Rafa is fourth in the rankings with 7,815 points, but he is set to drop 2,760 of them by the end of the season.
This would leave him with 5,055 points, pushing him down to world N.7, although it is possible that Andrey Rublev and/or Matteo Berrettini will drop enough points to allow him to stay in front of them. Nadal is thus all but assured to stay in the Top 10, and is reasonably certain to have a Top 8 seed at the Australian Open, something that would allow him to avoid meeting the likes of Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev until the quarter finals.
As for the upcoming US Open, his absence will give the fourth seed to Zverev, and will give a Top 8 one to either Casper Ruud or Pablo Carreno Busta (or, less likely, to Félix Auger-Aliassime). Cristian Garin, on the other hand, will get a Top 16 nod, while Dan Evans will ascend to number 24 (thus avoiding players ranked 1-8 in the third round) and Alexander Bublik will get the 32nd and final seed.
