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At the turn of the year, Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam champion, suffered an unfortunate hip injury during the second-round loss against Mackenzie McDonald at the Australian Open in January. The 37-year-old underwent surgery in June, and since then, he has been absent from the professional tennis scene, while announcing his intention to retire from the sport at the end of 2024 season.
The surgical procedure was performed by Dr. Philippon, Dr. Vilaro and Dr. Ruiz-Cotorro in Barcelona, who gave him an expected recovery time of five months before making his return to tennis. Rafael Nadal also tweeted out information regarding his hip surgery, talking about how everything went well with the arthroscopy on the left psoas tendon, which was injured in Australian Open earlier in the year.
Recently, Toni Nadal, the uncle and close confidant of Rafael Nadal, provided the latest update to El Desmarque about the Spanish tennis legend. He was quoted as saying, “Rafa is good, recovering. If all goes well he wants to return to the court for the 2024 Australian Open.”
The 62-year-old also spoke about Novak Djokovic, who defeated Daniil Medvedev to win the US Open earlier this September to equal the record of 24 Grand Slam victories, calling him the best in history because of the number of titles achieved. He said, “Djokovic is a great champion and it will be very difficult to reach him, not only for my nephew, but for anyone.”
“It's very difficult to determine who is the best in history…you have to opt for Djokovic because the titles support him,” he added.
“Although I think (Roger) Federer has sometimes managed to play at an even higher level, I think in the world of sport if we go by the numbers, Djokovic is without a doubt the best,” elaborated Toni Nadal.
