Do you know.. I have the same knee chronic injury as Rafa. I know how painful it is.
The good thing about his knee is that it is not dangerous and when he retire he will have no more pain.
Rest helps it, and some treatments. But it will never disappear. The knee will not be the factor for him to retire I think, he has been able to learn to play in pain. As long as he doesn't get a tear up (as he almost did in 2012) he just have to take care of it..
We should be happy that he doesn't have other injuries in his shoulder f.ex. Incredible he doesn't have that with his massive FH.
I am more afraid of that really.
But I worry if he has too much pain in his knee...He said several times that his health is most important. Have to trust him there. On the other hand he is so competitive I am not sure if he is careful enough.
excellent point. that is exactly what led me to exit the sport. I had a massive topspin forehand which I just had to hit at 300 MPH all the time.
and then to make matters even more insane, I had a heavy topspin backhand also.
the deal with heavy topspin players is this: they have to hit all the time and cant really afford to miss a single day.
it only takes a few days and the timing and the rhythm is gone.
especially today when everybody is hitting the ball at 600 MPH.
nadal has to be strong as hell otherwise that shoulder and the back would given away already.