Mats Wilander reacts to Rafael Nadal’s ‘extremely sad’ Australian Open withdrawal – ‘Maybe this is the last time’

His form after such a lengthy spell away from the tour offered encouragement to his legion of fans and for all with an interest in the sport that he could once defy the odds and return from injury to mix it with the best of the best.

He has lifted the trophy twice previously at Melbourne Park but this latest setback in a career plagued by injuries – in particular to his knees and feet – has Eurosport’s Wilander wondering whether or not we will see Nadal back in Australia in a playing capacity.

“It’s extremely sad news,” Wilander said. “Obviously it’s the most sad news for himself, because I saw the first three matches that he played in Brisbane. He looked extremely good in the first match against Dominic Thiem.

“He looked even better in the second round against Jason Kubler. And then, having three match points in the third round against Jordan Thompson. He looked great.

“He can miss those match points. We all have done that in our careers. The older you get, maybe the more pressure you put on yourself but I think it’s a little bit of a wake-up call in one way. We’ve been woken up all the time by rough injuries on others, but the injury that he has now, when you hear the description of it – micro, I mean the injuries he gets and has gotten are so different from other players.

“You just realise that it’s not just his ankle and his knee and the big part of his muscle, it’s also the smaller muscles in his body.

“Either he’s trained so hard over the years, or he tries so hard over the years that he breaks. And it’s so unusual. It is unfair to someone like Rafa Nadal, because he’s got the spirit that very few professional athletes have had over the years, and no-one, I think, gets the people so emotionally involved in his tennis or the sport they’re doing.

“So he’s a player that has had seasons. His season has very rarely lasted the whole year. We’ve gotten used to him coming back and doing the non-human thing, of coming back from injury time and time and time again, and maybe now at 37 years old, maybe this is the last time that he was able to come back.”

Nadal himself has already conceded that 2024 may be the final year of a career that began in 2001 and one which has seen him achieve all there is to achieve in the men’s game.

He has 22 Grand Slam titles to his name, which places him second on the men’s all-time list behind Novak Djokovic and includes a record 14 French Open successes.

The ‘King of Clay’ has held the No. 1 ranking for a total of 209 weeks, he has been the ATP Tour Player of the Year five times, he has won an Olympic gold medal in singles and doubles, picked up countless Masters 1000 titles, among a great many other things.

And he has done it with his unique brand of tennis. There are few sportspeople who display such passion and tenacity, and Wilander believes this blend has inspired more youngsters to the sport than even Roger Federer or Djokovic.

“It’s time that we start to celebrate Rafael Nadal, because Rafael Nadal is the main reason why we have the passion and players like Carlos Alcaraz, like a Stefanos Tsitsipas,” he added.

“I mean Rafael Nadal is the one that has affected the younger generation more to me than, Roger Federer, or even Novak Djokovic, because of the way that he has behaved over the years. Always so.

“Such a sportsman, always trying so hard, maybe trying too hard. But I think that’s what we want to see in our younger players and Rafa is the main reason for me.”