Nadal aiming to be 100% for Roland Garros but admits recovery is going slow: "We have no choice but to be a little patient"

Rafael Nadal is unsure when he'll be back on the tennis court because the 'big injury' he got at the Australian Open isn't healing as quickly as he hoped.

Nadal's injury didn't look too bad but it impacted him heavily and it's been described as a 'big injury' by Nadal himself in a recent interview. News about him practicing on clay already has been circulating but it doesn't mean that his return is close. It's not yet healed and he doesn't know when it will happen either:

“I’m going very slowly. I’m seeing week by week, I’m having tests to see how the injury is evolving. I haven’t spoken much since Australia, but in Australia I had a big, big malfunction. It was a very big tear in the muscle, I tore a little bit of the tendon. It’s a very complicated place in the psoas, in all sports, but in tennis we get strength from there, so it’s a slower evolution than we would like."

He continued:

“We have no choice but to be a little patient; it’s true that the calendar is passing and that I’m no longer 20 years old, and after a year like the one I’ve been having, you get tired, but I do what I can. Every day I’m at the Academy training, gym, recovery, 15 or 20 minutes on the court so that my arm doesn’t degenerate… but right now I’m waiting for the evolution.”

He confirmed that his goal is Roland Garros:

“I do not know if it will be Monte Carlo, I do not know if it will be Barcelona, if it will be Madrid, but I want to play, so when I can be back right away. The important thing for me…is to try to be healthy, when I compete on clay to feel that I can compete for what I want and fight for the ultimate goal, which right now has to be Roland Garros.”