Nadal: ‘I had doubts every day if I would return’

Rafael Nadal reached the 4th round of the Australian Open where he awaits Manarinos after a great performance and a 3-1 set win over Karen Katsanov.

Shortly after, the 35-year-old Spaniard spoke to Eurosport studio’s Matt Wilder and Alize Lim, describing his performance as the best since returning from injury and opening up about the very difficult times he’s been going through in recent months with doubts about it whether he can play tennis again!

“I’m really looking forward to my performance. It was my best match since coming back, I played aggressively, my returns were very good, I switched direction with the forehand. I made some mistakes in the 3rd set and my biggest mistake was trying to return his service further from the baseline. But I was able to come back in the 4th set. Today is a special day for me, I played very good tennis. If they had told me six months ago I wouldn’t have believed it, so I’m very happy.” said the blissful Nadal.

Speaking on the very difficult period from August 21st, the left-hander from Mallorca said: “I had a lot of doubts about whether I would return. Every day I doubted. For several months I tried to go to court every morning. I couldn’t train for 20 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes. It was difficult to predict what would happen. I worked with the doctor to find a solution, I’ve tried different things. It’s hard. Even though I’ve been through this several times in the past, I say the same thing every time. If you have certain injuries, it’s easier, to accept them.

For example, if you break your wrist, you know you have 3 months to return it. You have a plan and you work towards it every day. The injury I have is much more difficult. Every day you go to the stadium or the gym and you don’t see any improvement and that’s very difficult mentally. But I’m happy with my fighting spirit, my spirit and that’s probably why I’m here. I don’t know what will happen in the future but I’m having fun every moment”

SOURCE: Tennis24