Will he, won’t he has been a leading storyline of Rafael Nadal’s farewell year when it comes to his Roland Garros participation. But he has confirmed that as long as there is a chance he can compete than he will play.
It has been up and down during the return of the tennis great with some good results and some poor ones. He last lost to Hubert Hurkacz in a pretty damning defeat and will now head to Paris. But throughout he has been pretty coy about playing casting doubt at any juncture. For Nadal he has said at times that he’d die to play at Roland Garros and others he has wondered whether he will bother.
It was a bit of both again as Nadal said he didn’t want to feel helpless again, but also as long as he can feel competitive he will play.
"I don’t want to feel helpless like I did in Barcelona or Madrid. If there’s a 0.01% chance (that I can be competitive in Roland Garros), then I sure want to try to play; if not, then I prefer to keep all of the happy memories," he told France TV Sport.