"Destroyed mentally" - Nadal summarises Australian Open exit

Rafael Nadal is out of the Australian Open and it's because of an injury that left him unable to play but even before he wasn't playing that well, to begin with.

The Spaniard held a press conference following his exit and he was quite disappointed. There was very little joy left in Nadal and his words reflected his mood really well:

“I can’t say that I’m not destroyed mentally at this time because I will be lying. It’s hard for me. I considered it all the time, stopping. I just wanted to finish the match. That’s it ... I didn’t want to retire, to be the defending champion here. I didn’t want to leave the court with a retirement.”

He also revealed that he suffered from it a few days but nowhere near to the level of today:

“I have been a couple of days like this. But nothing like today in that movement. I don’t know.” I don’t know if it’s muscle, if it’s joint. I have history in the hip, I have had issues. I have had to do treatments in the past, recently too. But it was not this amount of problem.”