Australian Open: Nadal’s suffering as the highlight of tennis circus injury problems

Number one in the world, Rafael Nadal, leaves Melbourne in pain. Other aces also continue to face serious problems: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka.

Per Bastholt is one of the oldest physiotherapists in the tennis hiking circus. For decades he has been repairing small and medium problems with his famous clients using magic hands. But on Tuesday evening, in the Rod-Laver-Arena in Melbourne, the highly esteemed Swede was powerless. Bast fetches world number one Rafael Nadal with all his strength and intensity, he kneaded at the hip and thigh, stretched, massaged and stretched the Mallorcan, who – visually drawn – lay on the ground.

After three hours and 47 minutes the quarter-finals between Nadal and the Croatian Marin Cilic came to a bitter end. The painful world champion, the 16-time Grand Slam champion, gave up 6-3,4-6,7-6,2-6,2-6 and 0-2, it was the next bitter setback for the Spaniard limping out of the arena, who had already finished last season with a retreat from the ATP World Championships.

“Slowly, the decision-makers in tennis have to think about why so many top players are injured. This end hurts,”Nadal explained. He had already complained in the past about too many matches on hard courts and too many compulsory tournaments, especially for the upper ranks. Nadal’s Malaise is now responsible for the amazing semi-final duel between Cilic and Kyle Edmund. Yes, Edmund: The 23-year-old Briton, who has been inconspicuous so far, added a 6-4,3-6,6-3,6-4 win over ATP World Champion Grigor Dimitrov to the surprise coups in this tournament.

Meanwhile, the injury tragedy, especially among the top players in the industry, experienced an alarming continuation on the first meters of the season. After all, this is only the fourth tournament week of the 2018 season. But nobody seems to have been cured of last year’s injuries. Not the three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, who just made it to the second round in Melbourne and after his knee surgery he still needs a long comeback attempt back to the top ranking regions.

Not Novak Djokovic, who complained about elbow complaints against Korean Hyeon Chung on Monday in his last sixteen-finals knockout, may even have to be operated on. And of course not Andy Murray, who finally had to do without a Grand Slam start down under and was operated on the hip in the meantime. He will presumably not be able to return to the tour’s nomadic operation until June, when he still wants to be prepared for Wimbledon.

From the circle of players who have regularly secured the Grand Slam titles in recent years, Roger Federer is the only one who appears carefree – but at the price of a massively slimmed-down tournament programme. More than ever before, the Swiss player is concentrating on Grand Slam tournaments, taking long and longer breaks for regeneration.

Perhaps the old comrades-in-arms from world leaders Nadal, Wawrinka and Djokovic will soon follow him in this radical strategy. At the same time, however, the difficulties of the aging aces open up new perspectives and advancement opportunities for the younger generations, for players in their early twenties to mid-twenties.

They include the Korean Chung, Alexander Zverev, who he defeated in Melbourne. But also Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, Austria’s Dominic Thiem and Dimitrov – even though the Bulgarian once again missed the great opportunity to play Grand Slam in Melbourne. It is still more of a hint of a turn of an era that is associated with these developments. But the upheaval in men’s tennis seems quite possible in the near and medium term, quite simply because the tour veterans have to pay tribute to the exhausting program in the treadmill for so many years.

Nadal first and foremost. For more than two years of his career he has been injured and had to watch the action. At the start of the 2017 season, he returned to work quite relaxed after a long injury break, losing a dramatic Melbourne final of the comeback giants against Federer. Later in the season, he managed the feat of dominating the French Open for the tenth time, winning the title from Paris.

But the longer the year lasted, the more the strained body again showed signs of aches and pains. So now the quarter-finals in Melbourne, on the home straight of the match against Cilic:”If Nadal doesn’t continue to play, it’s definitely something very serious,”said Boris Becker, the Eurosport expert,”you have to be a little anxious about your career,” Nadal himself didn’t want to take part in the speculations:”I’ll be examined in detail. Then we’ll see. The problem is in the thigh.”