Rafael Nadal can win all four Grand Slam tournaments this season but he is not fixated on achieving the milestone, according to his coach.
The former world No.1 is currently on course to become only the second man in the Open Era to achieve a Calendar Slam after Rod Laver did so back in the 1960s. Earlier in the season the Spaniard triumphed at both the Australian Open and French Open. It is the first time the 36-year-old has ever won both of those events within the same year.
Nadal’s next target is next week’s Wimbledon championships where he will be making his 15th main draw appearance. Seeded second in this year’s draw behind defending champion Novak Djokovic, he is seeking to win the title for the third time in his career and the first since 2010. Nadal hasn’t played at Wimbledon since 2019 after the 2020 edition was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic and in 2021 he was sidelined by a foot injury.
Looking ahead to this year’s tournament, Nadal’s coach Carlos Moya weighed up his chances of achieving the Calendar Slam during an interview with Eurosport.
“It is a realistic goal, right now he is the only one that can achieve it this year,” Moya said. “It is the first time in his career that he is in a position to achieve it, but we see it as something far away, it is only halfway.
“At the moment he doesn’t lose sleep, as a team few things keep us up at night and this is not one of them. We have to go little by little, it is not something that we talk about, it is not a primary objective, although we are not going to give up on it.”
Recently Nadal underwent pulsed radiofrequency stimulation to treat his long-term foot condition. He suffers from Mueller-Weiss syndrome, a rare degenerative condition that affects bones in the feet. During the French Open, he revealed he only managed to play with the help of injections into his foot. Something he said he is not prepared to do again at another major.
He has not featured on the ATP Tour since Paris but Moya is confident Nadal is heading in the right direction. On Wednesday he played his first match at the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic exhibition event held at the Hurlingham Club. Impressively Nadal dropped just five games during his 6-2, 6-3, win over Stan Wawrinka.
“We had a pretty good week of training in Mallorca, although the grass there is a bit different from London, maybe that’s why it’s taking a little bit for him to adapt to the grass in England,” Moya explained.
“Right now, the important thing is that he spends time on the court and that his foot is fine, little by little he will pick up the pace, we also hope that the draw will help, especially in the first games.
“At Wimbledon there can always be more surprises. Regardless of the player you get in those first rounds, what is dangerous is the type of opponent you get, you have to be careful with the sluggers.”
Nadal is scheduled to play Felix Auger-Aliassime later this week in Hurlingham who he defeated in five sets at the French Open earlier this year.
