Rafael Nadal could skip Italian Open admits Mats Wilander due to packed clay court schedule with Roland Garros in mind

Mats Wilander predicted that Rafael Nadal could skip the Italian Open to arrive in good form at the French Open. The former Swedish tennis player hopes that Nadal will perform well in the clay-court tournaments, which have historically yielded excellent results for the 22-times Grand Slam champion.

Over the next two months, three Masters 1000 tournaments are scheduled on clay, where Nadal boasts an incredible record of 26 titles across the Monte-Carlo Masters (11), Madrid Open (5), and Rome Open (10), in addition to his 14 French Open titles.

The king of clay enters this part of the season with only one tournament played at the beginning of January, the Brisbane International, and has chosen to skip hardcourt tournaments such as the Qatar Open and Indian Wells to arrive in the best possible condition for the clay-court events.

With the possibility that this could be his last season as a professional player, Nadal intends to complete a full clay-court swing, as he is entered in all three Masters 1000 tournaments and the ATP 500 Barcelona Open, where he has won the title 12 times, all before competing at Roland Garros.

According to the 7-times Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander, Nadal may need to adjust his schedule if he feels well in the preceding tournaments and decides to prioritize his health before the French Open:

"When I think he’ll be ready for Roland Garros is either when he pulls out of the Italian Open, because he’s done well in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Madrid [if he plays], or when he wins a couple of matches at the Italian Open because he’s done well in the previous three weeks on clay."

"I think that’s always been the case. He’s always done unbelievably well in Rome but that is the clay court tournament out of all of them where he’s actually done the worst," he added.

"And some of it has to do with being a little tired. Some of it has to do with, ‘I have enough confidence – I just can’t push myself to play another two, three matches at this particular moment," Wilander concluded.