Rafael Nadal’s doctor provides encouraging update on the icon’s return
Rafael Nadal’s doctor, Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, has issued an encouraging if somewhat vague update on the 22-time Grand Slam winner’s fitness.
Ruiz-Cotorro suggested that Nadal aggravated his psoas muscle injury by trying to play through the pain.
However, he feels that Nadal’s mental strength will carry him through the rehabilitation process.
“Nadal has a very high mental health base. He is a very strong person, he has shown it in all his years of competition. Really, it is one of his strengths,” Cotorro said on Spanish TV.
“When you have an injury of this type, you come fighting, and then you see that you can’t, and you have to have surgery.
“It is a difficult situation. You have to help him, from all points of view.”
The doctor feels that Nadal will bounce back from the latest setback and be competitive on his return for what is expected to be a farewell season in 2024.
“He, since he knows this process and wants to play again, is doing everything possible to make it happen.
He has already shown us other times that he has returned; he will return once again,” Cotorro said.
The surgery that Nadal underwent was said to have been a success, and he was recently filmed training at his tennis academy.
“The surgery was positive,” said his spokesman of the procedure, which was carried out in Barcelona.
“The normal recovery process is estimated at five months.”
Nadal had announced that he was taking extra time away from the sport since the hip issue had not healed as effectively as he had hoped, and he would need surgery and time to recover.
For the first time since 2004, the Spaniard skipped the current French Open, which he has won 14 times.
Ruiz-Cotorro, who serves as the Spanish Tennis Federation’s medical advisor, advised journalists to avoid any sort of “rush” with regard to the recuperation period.
“We set ourselves this deadline (of five months) because it is important for an athlete to have a goal to stimulate his will to fight and to recover,” he said.
“It is difficult to say whether in five months he will be able to play at 100 percent. He may have to take another month to recover.”
It has been speculated that Nadal will be fit to feature in the Australian Open. Nadal has rarely opted to play any sort of warmups before the event in Melbourne in the past and might start his season at the Grand Slam.
READ MORE: Five records Novak Djokovic could break in the next year
