Former world No 1
Jim Courier has given his opinion about
the withdrawal of Spain’s legendary tennis star
Rafael Nadal from the
Indian Wells.
The 37-year-old became the latest high-profile player to withdraw
from the competition citing fitness concerns.
Courier was recently quoted in a report where he stated that
Nadal did not even look fit during the Netflix Slam where he faced Carlos
Alcaraz last week.
“I was in Las Vegas for the Netflix Slam when he and Carlos
Alcaraz played on Sunday and Nadal looked compromised at that event,” he said. “He
wasn’t arching his back the way he normally would to serve, his serve numbers
were a little lower than we would have expected and he was not moving with the
same type of freedom. Neither was Carlos for that matter.
“So I can’t say that this is totally surprising, but it is
thoroughly disappointing for Rafa first and foremost. He was doing everything
right and enjoying it and unfortunately he’s had a setback and that’s
definitely disappointing for him.
“But I think all of us understand the big picture goal is to
be ready for Roland Garros and I don’t think he decided that it was worth the
risk to come out and play.
“Listen, there’s plenty of opportunities for him to get the
matchplay that he values so much, right? You’ve got Monte Carlo, you’ve got
Barcelona, you’ve got Madrid, you have Rome.
“You have a full buffet of options and obviously he’ll gain
access to any of those tournaments he wants at any time. The question is, what
type of a schedule do they think as a team is going to set him up to be ready
to make a run at Roland Garros? if his body allows him that, fingers crossed,
we all wish.
“We’ll blink and we’ll be in Paris and hopefully we’ll be
seeing Rafa there in the flesh and not just that beautiful statue of him there
because he deserves it and tennis fans around the world deserve to get a chance
to see him there one more time if we can, but his body definitely has some
different ideas at the moment.”
