That hurts in Indian Wells, a place he loves, and where he can “be with calm.”
“I can’t lie to myself,” Rafael Nadal said of his decision to withdraw from Indian Wells on Wednesday evening.
He had arrived early to try to be ready, and even played an exhibition with Carlos Alcaraz over the weekend. But the 37-year-old couldn’t overcome his latest hip injury in time to compete for real.
So far, Rafa’s (possible) farewell tour of 2024 is coming up short on farewells. After playing three matches in Brisbane, and tearing a hip muscle in the process, he had to withdraw from the Australian Open, where he was a two-time champion. Now he has withdrawn from Indian Wells, where he’s a three-time winner.
Both must have hurt—the Australian Open because it’s a major, and Indian Wells because it has always been a special location for Rafa. If Paris is where he typically reaches his peak form, the California desert is where he reached peak work-life balance. He loved the legendary local golf courses almost as much as its slow hard courts, and he was an annual houseguest of tournament owner Larry Ellison. Sometimes I’ve thought the main reason the billionaire bought and hung onto the event was to have the chance to hang out with Rafa.
“Everyone knows how much I love this place and how much I love to play here,” Nadal wrote, with unusual directness, on social media yesterday.
