Nadal focused on clay – and other things we learned from the first warm-up week of the Australian Open
For months, Rafael Nadal has tried to dampen expectations for his comeback, telling the world he had little idea if he would ever return to his championship form or anything even close to it.
On Sunday, Nadal showed the world why he was so cautious. At 37, he knows how fragile he is and after suffering a minor muscle tear during a tuneup tournament in Brisbane, Nadal announced on his social media channels that he was withdrawing from the Australian Open.
“Hello everyone, during my last match in Brisbane I had a small problem with a muscle that, as you know, worried me,” Nadal wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Once I arrived in Melbourne I had the chance to do an MRI and I have a micro tear in a muscle, not in the same part where I had the injury and that is good news. Right now I’m not ready to compete at the maximum level in five-set matches. I’m flying back to Spain to see my doctor, get treatment and rest.”
What Nadal alluded to during his few conversations with the media in Australia and what became crystal clear on Sunday is that achieving great results in these first weeks of the season, on hard courts and after almost a year of absence from the field, is never the best option used to be. priority. Nadal has won the French Open fourteen times. He is known as the “King of Clay”. Tennis doesn’t start until April on the red clay on which he excels. He is intensely focused on being in top form then, not now, and for Roland Garros, which starts at the end of May, and probably for the Olympic Games, which will take place at Roland Garros at the end of July.
“I have worked very hard all year for this comeback and as I have always said, my goal is to be at my best level in three months,” Nadal wrote on Sunday. “Despite the sad news that I have not been able to play in front of the great crowd in Melbourne, this is not very bad news and we all remain positive about the evolution of the season. I really wanted to play here in Australia and I had the opportunity to play a few games which made me very happy and positive.”
Whether Nadal’s hip, knees or chronically injured foot will allow him to play is anyone’s guess. Modern tennis, especially the brutally physical tennis that Nadal plays, is not kind to the aging athlete. Just ask Roger Federer and Andy Murray, or Novak Djokovic, who spends so many waking hours maintaining his health and is currently dealing with a niggle in his wrist.
But Nadal showed in his three matches in Brisbane that he is still there knows how to play tennis. Say what you will about his opponents – a faded Dominic Thiem and two mediocre Aussies, Jason Kubler and Jordan Thompson – there were moments when Nadal looked as slick as ever, especially when he sprinted after drop shots deep in the back.rt and made those running, angular movements that seem to come only from his hands.
(Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images)
He also lost three match points to Thompson in the second set and had to receive medical attention due to discomfort near the hip that doctors surgically repaired last year. After losing the match, Nadal indicated that playing in the first Grand Slam of the year would depend on how he felt the next morning and the following days. “After a year it is difficult for the body to still play tournaments at the highest level.”
There is a glass half full view of all this. Had Nadal won those match points, he might have been tempted to play in the semi-final on Saturday and possibly a final on Sunday, risking a more serious injury. He played three matches and reminded himself that he can play sublime tennis against stiff competition, at least for a few sets. Now comes some rest and recovery.
Whatever happens in terms of his playing schedule, there is no doubt where his focus lies: the red clay of Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Paris.
What else?
It’s only the opening week of the season, so these tournaments mean nothing.
One of the biggest tournaments of the year, the Australian Open, is just around the corner, so players need to be in shape now.
Only in tennis can both statements be true.
After the shortest off-season, the Australian Open kicks off on Sunday, January 14, meaning hundreds of players spent the first days of the year (and the final days of 2023) doing what they could to prepare.
The results of the tune-up weeks come with the stock picker’s warning: past performance is not an indicator of future success. Some top players did not participate at all.
That said, we looked at what was happening in Australia, New Zealand and even Hong Kong. Here are some things we noticed.
Novak Djokovic lost a match in Australia.
It doesn’t happen much. He has won the past four Australian Opens he has played in, and 10 in total, but lost 6-4, 6-4 to Australia’s Alex de Minaur in the United Cup, a mixed team competition.
The loss isn’t that worrisome. It happens.
But Djokovic is struggling with a right wrist injury and received medical attention during the United Cup. No one knows how to take care of their body better than Djokovic. He suffered significant injuries (hamstring and abdominal tears) in his last two Australian Opens and still won. Still, wrist injuries in tennis players can be major red flags, flaring unpredictably at the worst moments, and there’s no way to hide them.
Like Nadal, Naomi Osaka I haven’t forgotten how to play tennis.
She won one match and lost another in Brisbane, but most importantly she played five tight sets, including two tiebreaks, and gave Karolina Pliskova all she could handle in her first tournament after a year’s layoff due to injury, mental health issues and maternity leave. .
Their ball makes a different sound as it comes off Osaka’s racket, a kind of firecracker that serves as a quick reminder of why tennis is better when Osaka plays. And the way she slams her left fist on her thigh as she prepares for a big point… if that doesn’t get the juices flowing, it’s hard to say what will.
Iga Swaatek is in a good place.
Yes, the world number 1 won a lot of games for Poland in the United Cup, often trouncing her opponents in her usual fashion, but she also seemed lighter and didn’t carry that ranking with her like Atlas tries to do the globe to keep upright.
She even joked about the thing she hates making jokes about – “Iga’s Bakery”. That’s the nickname the media has given to all her 6-0 (bagel) and 6-1 (breadstick) sets. After she and Hubert Hurkacz teamed up to beat Spain 6-0, 6-0, she said she would consider hiring Hurkacz as one of her bakers.
Coco Gauff had about as good a start as she could have asked for.
She headed to Auckland to defend her season-opening title in the ASB Classic. Gauff won the last Grand Slam at the US Open. Starting the season as a Grand Slam champion can mess with the mind.
Gauff reeled off five straight wins, taking 10 of 11 sets and defending her title with a win Elina Svitolina, fortunately healthy again, in the hard-fought final, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3. Gauff was clearly wiped out at the WTA Finals in early November. She skipped the final of the Billie Jean King Cup the following week in Spain. After a nice short break, she looked rested and sharp.
She could have gotten a bad draw and lost in the first round of the Australian Open, but she couldn’t have started her season better.
Svitolina shut herself down after the US Open with a stress fracture in her ankle.
Returning to competition on hard courts, which aggravated the injury over the summer, is not ideal. But Svitolina seemed to play without pain and win in New Zealand. That is good news.
(Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Frances Tiafoe entered the court for the first time in a while without Wayne Ferreira accompanying him.
Tiafoe and Ferreira split after spending the better part of four seasons together and reaching the semifinals of the 2022 US Open.
Tiafoe cracked the top 10 for the first time last year but slipped in the final months of the season and said he entered 2024 looking to have more fun, play more aggressively and be less results-oriented under Diego Moyano’s guidance.
“For a lot of 2023, I put a lot of pressure on myself,” he said. “I really wanted to do well. It was really hard for me. I still had a great year, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do in the big events.”
Tiafoe won 1-1 at the Hong Kong Open, losing his quarterfinal to JC Shang of China.
Which brings us to this: keeping an eye JC Shang this season.
He is only 18 years old and is already showing a huge advantage. Shang spent much of his tennis life at the IMG Academy. (IMG once guided China’s Li Na to her breakthrough career.) He qualified for the Australian Open last year and won a match before losing to Tiafoe. He also qualified for the French Open.
Besides Tiafoe in Hong Kong, he defeated the highly regarded Botic van de Zandschulp. Shang lost to Andrei Rublevwho had a tip-top first week, in the semi-finals.
Again, take these results for what they are – early season wins by veterans trying to find their rhythm – but when teenagers beat seasoned pros, it stands out.
Emma Raducanu is alive and playing tennis again.
The 2021 US Open champion underwent triple surgery last spring: two wrists and one ankle. She has set expectations low and hopes everyone else does too, as she is essentially starting from scratch and was ranked 301st in the world when the year started.
“I feel reborn,” she said.
She moved well and crushed some backhands in her opening match, which she won. She was about to win a second before Svitolina caught her in three sets.
She will now play in the main draw of the Australian Open without having to go through qualifying, which could be a curse in disguise. She could probably use the matches and did quite well the last time she played qualifiers at a Grand Slam at the 2021 US Open.
However, like Nadal, Raducanu simply hopes to stay healthy.
(Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Yelena Ostapenko, the fiery Latvian, hasn’t changed a bit during the break.
Ostapenko was not happy with a call from chair umpire Julie Kjendlie during her loss to Victoria Azarenka.
“You will never be at my match again,” Ostapenko scolded Kjendlie. “You’re ruining my matches.”
So on-brand.
A few very big names decided to skip the warm-up week altogether.
Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev are heading into the first Grand Slam of the year without any competitive tune-ups. Those are three of the top four men, but also three players who played a lot of tennis last year and in the case of Alcaraz and Sinner, two players who are still trying to figure out how to optimize their schedules.
Alcaraz also missed the Australian Open last season with a last-minute injury and he certainly didn’t want that to happen again.
Sinner reached the final of the season-ending ATP Finals and then led Italy to the Davis Cup.
Medvedev, well, he does a lot of unorthodox things when it comes to tennis, like hitting a forehand like someone is trying to swat a mosquito in the backseat of a Volkswagen Beetle.
May it ever be so.
(Top photo: Chris Hyde/Getty Images)