Rafael Nadal Withdraws From Wimbledon Semifinal As Grand Slam Bid Comes To An End

Rafael Nadal’s bid for the first calendar year Grand Slam since 1969 is over.

Nadal withdrew ahead of Friday’s Wimbledon semifinal against Nick Kyrgios due to an abdominal tear that has hindered him for about a week.

Nadal, 36, had won the first two legs of the calendar Grand Slam for the first time in his career and was two match wins from winning a third at Wimbledon after he survived a five-set quarterfinal against American Taylor Fritz on Wednesday despite the injury. The 22-time major champion had won 19 straight major matches in 2022. No man has won the calendar Slam since Rod Laver in 1969.

Instead of potentially winning a 23rd major title Sunday, Nadal will remain at 22, while his chief rival Novak Djokovic is now two match wins from getting to 21. Roger Federer is currently tied with Djokovic at 20 major titles.

“Unfortunately, I have to pull out of the tournament,” Nadal said at a press conference. “I have a tear in the muscle in the abdominal. It doesn’t make sense to go. Very tough circumstances…It’s obvious that if I keep going the injury is going to be worse and worse.

He added: “I made my decision because I believe that I can’t win two matches under these circumstances. I can’t serve. It’s not only that I can’t serve at the right speed, it’s that I can’t do the normal movement to serve.

“For respect to myself in some way, I don’t want to go out there not be competitive enough to play at the level that I need to play to achieve my goal and with a big chance to make the thing worse.”

Nadal said he didn’t want to risk missing “two to three months” of competition going forward. The U.S. Open begins Aug. 29.

Three-time defending champion Djokovic will play Britain’s Cam Norrie in the only semifinal Friday, with the winner advancing to meet Kyrgios Sunday.

“I really do believe if [Nadal] was playing the final on Sunday, he would risk it,” ESPN’s Brad Gilbert said on air.

Marca earlier reported that Nadal is suffering from a “seven millimeter tear in one of his abdominal muscles” but wanted to play Kyrgios.

Nadal practiced for 40 minutes Thursday alongside coach Marc Lopez and worked on what Marca called his “odd service” motion to prepare for the semifinals. Video on ESPN showed Nadal had no tape around his abdominal area, and he appeared to be mostly using his left arm to serve — not much of his mid-section. A group of six people presumably from Nadal’s inner circle were shown standing around Nadal as he sat wearing a yellow shirt on the grass practice courts during the practice session.

Nadal was broken eight times against Fritz while dealing with the abdominal issue.

ESPN’s Mary Joe Fernandez said before the announcement: “He’s not going to step on the court unless he thinks he can win. He’s not going to step on the court just to see how he is. He’s going to suss is out on the court one more time during the warm-up and if he feels like he can win, he’ll be out there.

Kyrgios, who had never before reached a major semifinal, is now into the Wimbledon final and will have a chance for his first major title. He had been looking forward to playing Nadal.

“Obviously, it would be pretty special to play Rafa here,” Kyrgios said. “We’ve had some absolute battles on that Centre Court. He’s won against me and I’ve won one against him so obviously we know two completely different personalities and I feel like we respect the hell out of each other so I feel like that would be a mouth-watering kind of encounter for everyone around the world. That would probably be the most-watched match of all time, I would argue that.”