Rafael Nadal, who won 22 Grand Slams and was one of the “Big Three” who dominated tennis for 20 years along with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, endured pain for the majority of his career as he forced himself to play despite a persistent foot problem.
The Spaniard, who retired in 2024, claimed to have taken significant health risks in order to continue playing tennis after the Netflix series “Rafa” gave viewers a close-up view of his mental and physical battles to achieve greatness.
“I’ve had to make decisions about my health, where you are on the borderline between right or wrong. But if I hadn’t explored all that, I probably would have had 10 fewer Grand Slams… this is the reality,” Nadal told the BBC in an interview published on Friday.
After breaking his foot in the 2005 Madrid Open final, months after winning the French Open on his first attempt at the age of 19 and earning his maiden Grand Slam championship, Rafael Nadal was diagnosed with a rare illness known as Mueller-Weiss syndrome.
Nadal refused to give up even though the disease, which was brought on by his intense training under his uncle Toni as a child, put his career in jeopardy.
He won 13 additional Grand Slams over the next nine years, winning at least one major each year, but the injuries plagued him.
“Tennis became a race against time. Always having the doubt in my head of, how long can I last with this foot? I never knew how long my career would last. I always thought, maybe it’s the last year, so there’s no time to stop,” Nadal said.
Other health issues resulted from the accident, such as tendonitis in his left knee and intestinal perforations brought on by the usage of medicines.
He occasionally needed to use targeted anesthetic injections to manage the agony, and during his final Grand Slam victory in the 2022 French Open, he had no feeling in his leg.
“The key was the suffering was less than my passion and my happiness for what I was doing,” the 39-year-old said.
