ATP: Reduced tournament schedule: How Nadal wants to defend number 1

Less is more: that’s the motto of Rafael Nadal in the coming season. The 31-year-old Spaniard has announced his tournament schedule for 2018.

Whoever wins two majors and finishes the year top of the world rankings can’t have done much wrong in the tournament planning. Nevertheless, Nadal plans to participate in 18 tournaments in 2018, two fewer than he had planned for last season.

In practice, however, not much will change at all: Nadal is abandoning the tournaments in Rotterdam and Basel – two events that he had already cancelled in 2017 for injury reasons. The strains were particularly noticeable at the end of the year, when “Rafa” had to give up prematurely due to knee problems in Paris-Bércy and at the season finale in London.

Nadal and his team have long since realized that the constant changes of surface are poisonous for his body. That’s why, as in this year, he will do without the clay court tournaments in South America.

However, the opening programme remains unchanged: Nadal starts his campaign at an invitation tournament, the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi (28. till 30. December). Afterwards, he heads to Brisbane for the hard court tournament, where he prepares himself for the first Grand Slam highlight of the year.

In April and May Nadal wants to position himself for his eleventh title in Roland Garros. Afterwards, a performance at the lawn tournament in the Queen’s Club in London is planned. Much remains to be done. The Spanish sports paper Marca has calculated that it will cover some 106,523 kilometres – which corresponds to around two-and-a-half orbits around the world.

January

Brisbane (31. December – 7. January)

Australian Open (15 – 28. January)

February

Acapulco (26. February – 3. March)

March

Indian Wells (8th – 18th century) March)

Miami (21. March – 1. April)

April

Monte Carlo (15. – 22. April)

Barcelona (23 – 29. April)

May

Madrid (6th – 13th century May)

Rome (13th – 20th century) May)

French Open (27. May – 10. June)

June

Queen’s (18. – 24. June)

July

Wimbledon (2nd – 15th century July)

August

Montreal (6 – 12. August)

Cincinnati (12th – 19th century) August)

US Open (27. August – 09. September)

October

Beijing (1. – 7. October)

Shanghai (7 – 14. October)

Paris-Bercy (29. October – 4. November)

November

ATP World Tour Finals (11th – 18th place) November) – at qualification