Rafael Nadal, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles and one of the “Big Three” alongside Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic who dominated tennis for two decades, spent most of his career in pain, struggling to continue playing despite a chronic foot injury.
The Spaniard, who will retire in 2024, said he took huge risks with his health to maintain his tennis career, after one offered an in-depth look at his quest for greatness.
“I had to make decisions about my health, decisions that put me on the fine line between right and wrong. But if I hadn’t explored all of this, I would probably have achieved less… that’s the reality,” Nadal told the BBC in an interview published on Friday.
Nadal was diagnosed with a rare condition called Mueller-Weiss syndrome after fracturing his foot during the 2005 Madrid Open final, months after winning the French Open at his first attempt at age 19 to claim his first Grand Slam title.
Although the condition, caused by the intense training he received as a child under the tutelage of his uncle Toni, put his career at risk, Nadal refused to give up.
The injury plagued him even after he won 13 more Grand Slam titles over the next nine years, winning at least one Major tournament each year.
“Tennis became a race against time. There was always that question in my head: ‘How long can I last with this foot?’. I never knew how long my career would last,” said Nadal.
“I always thought: Maybe it’s the last year, so there’s no time to stop.”
The injury also led to other health complications, including tendinitis in his left knee and perforated intestines, the latter caused by the use of painkillers.
He sometimes had to manage the pain with localized anesthetic injections and felt nothing in his leg during the 2022 French Open final, his last Grand Slam victory.
“The key was that the suffering was smaller than my passion and my happiness for what I did,” said the 39-year-old.
