Rafael Nadal made an impassioned statement about the upcoming French Open as he admitted that the tournament was worth “giving everything and dying for”. The Spaniard suffered a defeat in the second round of the Barcelona Open, where he confessed he had likely made his final appearance. And Nadal gave a brutal reality check to those hoping for a fairytale comeback story.
It was a tale of two halves in Nadal’s match against Alex De Minaur as the 37-year-old lost 7-5 6-1. In what was just his fifth match since last January, the Spaniard showed positive signs in a competitive opening set, pushing the world No. 11 for over an hour.
But things quickly fell away in the second set as the Australian broke Nadal’s serve three times and stormed to victory. The 22-time Grand Slam champion hit 42 unforced errors in the match, a telling sign of his lack of match play in recent months.
After the match, Nadal was brutally honest about his expectations as he made his intentions clear about the French Open. “It wasn’t today that I had to leave everything and die,” the 12-time Barcelona Open champion said.
“I have to give myself the option to do this in a few weeks, at least try. If I had died today, I would never have the opportunity to do so in a few weeks, so I have to play according to the objective I have.”
Instead, Nadal believes that the French Open is the tournament worth sacrificing everything for. He continued: “On a logical level, the idea is to progress, but I’m not talking about winning games, but rather at the level of fighting for things. In Madrid take another step, in Rome another… and in Paris let it be whatever God wants.”
While Nadal is willing to give it his all at the French Open, he explained that the same couldn’t be said for Barcelona where he had to be realistic. After losing a close first set to De Minaur, the former world No. 1 knew that he couldn’t sustain his level for much longer.
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