Rafael Nadal overwhelmed Casper Ruud in consecutive sets Sunday to collect his 14th French Open championship and 22nd Grand Slam title. But he revealed after the match that he needed an injection to his ailing left foot just to be able to play.
Nadal told Eurosport after his 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 victory that he received an injection to numb his foot for Sunday’s final.
“The preparation was not ideal,” he said. “I had a stress fracture of the rib, then I have the foot which stays there all the time. I had my doctor here with me — I don’t know how to say in English what we did, we played with no feeling on the foot, we played with an injection in the nerve so the foot was asleep — that’s why I was able to play.”
During the trophy ceremony, Nadal thanked his family and support team for helping him, because otherwise he would have needed to “retire much before.”
“I don’t know what can happen in the future,” Nadal told the crowd, “but I’m going to keep fighting to try to keep going.”
Nadal revealed during his media availability after the match that he’d been undergoing frequent injections into a nerve throughout the past two weeks at Roland Garros, which served to numb the pain in his foot caused by Mueller-Weiss syndrome. It is not a long-term solution to the chronic foot problem and he will visit a specialist next week to undergo a fresh procedure — a radiofrequency nerve ablation.
The success of that procedure will dictate whether he plays Wimbledon or not.
“I’m going to be in Wimbledon if my body is ready to be in Wimbledon,” Nadal stated. “That’s it. Wimbledon is not a tournament that I want to miss. I think nobody want to miss Wimbledon. I love Wimbledon.”
He said if the procedure doesn’t work, he’ll have to decide if he’s ready to undergo a major surgery with no guarantee that it will be successful and might require a prolonged recovery time.
But he did confirm he would not go through the whole process of getting injections daily to get him through Wimbledon.
“Wimbledon is a priority, always (has) been a priority. If I am able to play with anti-inflammatories? Yes. To play with anesthetic injections? No. I don’t want to put myself in that position again. Can happen once, but no, is not a philosophy of life that I want to follow.
“So let’s see. I am always a positive guy, and I always expect things going the right way. So let’s be confident, and let’s be positive. Then let’s see what’s going on.”
Nadal’s victory came two days after his 36th birthday and made him the oldest title winner in the history of the clay-court tournament. The oldest champion in tournament history had been Andres Gimeno, who was 34 when he won in 1972.
Ruud led 3-1 in the second set, a deficit that spurred Nadal to raise his level — he took the last 11 games. Nadal’s six games lost Sunday are tied for his second fewest in a major final. He has won six major finals in which he has conceded fewer than 10 games, breaking a tie with Richard Sears for the most by any man in tennis history.
Given his age, and of more concern, the chronic pain in his left foot that has been an off-and-on problem for years, Nadal has stated repeatedly in recent days that he can never be sure whether each match at Court Philippe Chatrier might be his last.
“We all know what a champion you are, and today I got to feel how it is to play against you in a final. And it’s not easy,” Ruud said. “I’m not the first victim. I know that there have been many before.”
Nadal can now place this latest Coupe des Mousquetaires alongside the trophies he gathered at Roland Garros from 2005 to ’08, 2010 to ’14 and 2017 to ’20. He has also won the US Open four times and the Australian Open and Wimbledon twice apiece.
