Rafael Nadal is training with great intensity on the red clay of Bastad, after deciding to skip the Wimbledon Championships 2024 to avoid new injuries. The former number 1 of the world feels much better physically than a few months ago and his career could go on beyond 2024 if his body responds properly.
The 22-time Grand Slam champion will be one of the most anticipated athletes at the Paris Olympics, representing perhaps his biggest goal of the year. The Spaniard will use the Bastad tournament to prepare for the Olympic tournament, which will take place on the courts of the French Open.
In Paris, Rafa will play the single and the double (along with his compatriot Carlos Alcaraz) with the aim of winning a medal. Nadal has played very little in recent years due to injuries and admitted that he did not plan to return to play an official tournament, but the situation has changed recently and optimism has grown with the passing of days.
Rafa wants to greet the fans and be competitive before retiring, in fact he is training to the maximum to be ready for the next appointments. This year the Spaniard will also participate in the Laver Cup, the exhibition wanted and founded by his former rival Roger Federer in 2017.
Rafa trained with Etcheverry
Nadal wants to do his best and trained with Tomas Martin Etcheverry at his academy in Greece. The Argentine tennis player revealed his feelings in a short interview with the ATP website: “I could talk a lot with him and ask him for some advice. They were dream days for me, Rafa is a very kind and nice guy. For me it was an honor and a privilege. I can say that he is very motivated and that he is training at a very good level.”
Rafa’s last tournament was the French Open, where he was eliminated in the first round by a great Alexander Zverev. The Spaniard did not shine in Madrid and Rome, defeated quite sharply by Lehecka and Hurkacz.
Recently, 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic explained that tennis must find new solutions to attract a younger audience. According to the Serbian champion, sports such as padel and pickleball could take over in the coming years. “Now we have the padel that is growing and emerging. People kind of have fun with it and say: ‘Yeah, but tennis is tennis.’ Tennis is the king or queen of all the racket sports, that’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered. If we don’t do something about it, as I said, globally or collectively, padel, pickleball in [the] States, they’re going to convert all the tennis clubs into padel and pickleball because it’s just more economical. You have one tennis court. You can build three padel courts on one tennis court. You do the simple math. It’s just much more financially viable for an owner of a club to have those courts” – the Serbian explained.
In a recent interview with El Pais, Toni Nadal – Rafa’s uncle – wanted to answer Nole: “As for the first problem, Novak argues that the causes are economic in nature but, from my point of view, the escape of tennis players to other types of racket is due more to a change of society than to the search for profitability by clubs”.
Toni added: “If you want to make sure in tennis that the interest of the audience is not limited to large numbers, but also to second-level players, you also need to make some changes. In tennis the same rules have been maintained as always, without taking into account the diversity of current tennis players or the immense improvement of materials and technology. The execution of the game is so different that the sport we see today has nothing to do with ‘early’ tennis”.
The Big 3 made history
Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have contributed greatly to the popularity of tennis in the last 20 years. The Big 3 have made tennis a global sport, breaking many records and creating iconic rivalries. Federer retired in 2022, while Rafa and Nole are at the end of their careers. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are the players who have the most chances to take their place and have already played incredible matches.
The hope of fans and experts is that tennis manages to attract a younger audience despite the absence of Big 3, a difficult mission but not impossible. The ATP is studying new solutions to be adopted in the coming years, without distorting the essence of the game.
