"With all the injuries I've had, practically a miracle": Nadal accepts end to top 10 reign

Rafael Nadal's streak of being ranked inside the top 10 will end after the Indian Wells Masters and the Spaniard called the 18-year old run a miracle.

Nadal always maintained that he achieved much more in tennis than he ever thought he would. Many of the records he holds are incredible but none is more improbable than being ranked inside the top 10 for 18 years. That run will end this year after the Indian Wells and Nadal briefly reacted to it when a reporter asked him about it.

He said:

"I prefer to be in the top-10, it's obvious, but in the end you have to accept things as they come. With all the injuries I've had over the last 18 years, not having left the top-10 at any occasion is practically a miracle. A time has come when a lot has happened in the last year: a broken rib, two abdominal tears, now the psoas, foot problems. There are many things that, in tennis, with a ranking that lasts a year. You know if you don't play, you're out of the top-10."

He doesn't know where he will return because the injury recovery has went slower than he would have liked. It was a significant injury but his goal is clear:

"Now the gravel season is coming and we have to try to add [points], but the important thing for me, beyond all that, is to try to be healthy, when I compete on gravel to feel that I can compete for what I want and fight for the ultimate goal, which now It has to be Roland Garros itself."