Rafael Nadal Wanted To End Season After Indian Wells, Explains Mental Struggle

Rafael Nadal won his 12th Roland Garros title on Sunday when he beat Dominic Thiem in four sets to continue building his legacy as the greatest clay court player in the history of the game. But the 2019 season has been a trying one for the Spaniard, who only returned from a knee injury at the start of the clay court season in Monte Carlo.

The Spaniard admitted that the latest injury setback was mentally draining and admitted that he even contemplated ending his season early in order to recuperate physically and mentally. But when asked if he ever thought about retirement, he made it clear that such “drastic decisions” never crossed his mind.

Nadal ended last season prematurely when he retired from his semifinal match at the US Open against Juan Martin del Potro before returning for the Australian Open earlier this year. He then suffered a knee injury during the BNP Paribas Masters in March before returning a month later for the first major clay court tournament of the year in Monte Carlo.

The world No. 2, who has dominated the clay court season in recent years, suffered defeats in the semifinals in three consecutive clay court tournaments in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Barcelona, which indicated that he was not at his best physically. Nadal, finally, secured his first win of the season at the Rome Masters where he beat world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, before going onto dominate at Roland Garros and claim his 12th French Open title and his 18th overall Grand Slam title.

But Nadal admitted during an interview after his French Open triumph that a month ago he could not imagine winning the title at Roland Garros. He revealed that it was his belief to get back to his best is the only reason he captured his 12th title on the red dirt in Paris.

“I did not,” Nadal told ATP Tour’s official site. “If I made it to this point, it was because I believed that I could. If I didn’t think I could make it happen, I wouldn’t have followed through; I would have gone a different route.”

The Spaniard spoke about the “downturn” he suffered after his latest setback in Indian Wells where he contemplated ending his 2019 season, stating: “Mentally, after Indian Wells, I suffered a major downturn. Ideas and scenarios were swirling inside my head. I considered shutting down my season to see if my body would recuperate instead of playing through injury after injury. Another option was to press on and play through the pain. Either way, the outlook was bleak. It required a change of mindset this time, and that doesn’t happen overnight.”

Nadal has previously stated that he will stop playing tennis when he loses the “illusion”, “ the dream” but he made it clear that retirement was never part of his thought process and that he was only considering a small break in order to completely recover from the physical and mental distress.

“I wasn’t in that situation. In this scenario, I was weighing the option of taking some time off to recover. It’s not a case of losing the drive of playing tennis. I had just lost the strength to face down every problem that sprung up on a daily basis and to deal with the debilitating pain. I had to make a decision, but not that drastic of a decision (retirement),” Nadal said. “No, not at all. Just contemplated a break for time to recover,” he added dismissing talks about retirement.