Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from the Wimbledon semi-final against Nick Kyrgios due to his abdominal injury, giving the Australian a walk-over bye to Sunday’s final.
Nadal called an unscheduled press conference at 7:20 p.m. Thursday night where he confirmed his withdrawal after failing to recover from the tear to his abdomen sustained in his quarterfinal win over Taylor Fritz.
“I have to withdraw from the tournament,” Nadal said. “As everyone saw yesterday, I suffer from pain in the abdomen [area]† That has been confirmed. I have a muscle tear. I’m very sad to say that.”
Reports in Spain claimed Nadal had a 7mm tear in his abdominal muscle after undergoing scans.
Nadal was supposed to train at 12:30 p.m. but did not show up at the scheduled time. He later arrived at the Wimbledon grounds and trained for 45 minutes at Aorangi Park.
With the withdrawal of the two-time Wimbledon champion, Kyrgios will face the winner Cameron Norrie and Novak Djokovic’s semi-final, to be played at Center Court on Friday.
The 36-year-old’s hopes for a slam on the calendar are also gone after he expanded his tally to 22 with victories at the Australian and French Open this year.
He added: “I’m making my decision because I don’t think I can win two games under these conditions. I can’t serve, not only not at the right speed, but it’s [that] I can’t do the normal movement to serve.
“I have to say that if I imagine winning two games and somehow respecting myself, I don’t want to go out and I’m not competitive enough to play at the level I need to play to achieve my goal, and with a big chance to make it worse a few weeks ago i saw my career [future] very difficult. It will no doubt be better that way. But as I’ve always said, the most important thing is luck above any title.
“I can’t take that much risk and stay out of the competition for two to three months because that would be difficult for me. If that happens, it will happen, but not because I didn’t do things right.”
Ranked 40th in the world, Nick Kyrgios is the lowest and first unseeded men’s Wimbledon finalist since Mark Philippoussis, who was 48 in 2003. world when he reached the 2006 Australian Open and the first unseeded since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the 2008 Australian Open
A walkover to the final never happened at Wimbledon, but the 1931 final was not played after Frank Shields gave a walkover to Sidney Wood after the United States Tennis Association told him to rest his injured knee to get fit. are for an important game. Davis Cup match.
Kyrgios vs Nadal is only the second walk-over in the men’s grand slam semi-final or final during Open Era. The first came in the 1992 Australian Open semifinal, when Richard Krajicek missed his match with Jim Courier due to a tendonitis in his shoulder.