Nadal imposes himself to go to the limit: “And if I break, then I break; It’s time to force.”

After overcoming a treacherous opening match against Zizou Bergs, resolved in almost three hours (4-6, 6-3 and 6-4), Rafael Nadal speaks openly: he needs time, but it is scarce. That is to say, he is here and now, there is no longer any margin. “Roland Garros is in two and a half weeks, so… There comes a time when I have to prove to myself if I am capable of pushing my body to the limit I need to feel ready for what is coming. And I’m not just talking about Roland Garros, but about the next game,” explains the Mallorcan, quoted this Saturday with gunner Hubert Hurkacz. That is, nothing to do with Bergs; from 103rd in the world – with barely thirty matches on the circuit – to number nine – a fearsome server and owner of two Masters 1000, those in Miami (2021) and Shanghai (2023) -.

Nadal talks to journalists after 2h 53m of curves against the Belgian, and acknowledges “doubts” and moments of “unrest”; those 20 minutes that cost him the first quarter and those other stretches in which the match could have escaped him, the first he had played at the Foro Italico in Rome for two years. There is no lack of self-criticism — “I haven’t played the way I can and I need to play” — but at the same time he appreciates having been able to save the day and have another opportunity to take to the court, because Paris is approaching — the starting signal is on the 26th—and after having ascended two steps, he has an essential third to determine whether or not he is in a position to participate in the great French event. He feels “faster” and scores “much better” than he did a few days ago, but today it is still not enough.

The Balearic player must better interpret how he positions himself on the court: “Sometimes I play too far from the baseline. The first set in the last match in Madrid [ante el checo Jiri Lehecka] It is a good reference for how I have to play.” But, above all, he needs to cross the threshold of fear that has forced him to compete until now with the corset in this latest comeback. It all started on June 3, when he turned 37 and underwent surgery to undergo surgery for his iliac psoas and also for an old hip problem. “They removed part of the tendon and I have had to greatly strengthen all the muscles around it, so it is about having time to adapt all those muscles to the new configuration of the hip; The problem is that I don’t have that much time, that’s the truth,” he says. The point is that his chassis must accept the new mechanics, but the proximity of Roland Garros, his great objective in this final stretch of his career, forces him to make a level jump for which he does not know if he will be prepared. or not.

“I have been going very step by step, trying to make small improvements every day, but there has come a time when I need to prove myself one hundred percent. And it is not easy, because I need to lose fear in some shots and in Brisbane, for example, I got a tear in the operation area,” he details; “I hoped I could have had that progression from the beginning of the season to Monte Carlo, but it couldn’t be, because I had an abdominal problem. I have managed to make progress these last three weeks, but a time has come when I have to go all out; and if something happens, it happens. That’s the truth. I need to lose my fear and games like today help. In some moments I have gone faster, and in others slower, so I need to get used to that, to taking risks. And if I break, well I break; I will accept the consequences. But it’s time to force. That is the goal.”

Nadal, therefore, will face the duel with Hurkacz as a true test by fire. Without the theoretical safety net. He did not force the slightest in Barcelona, ​​nor did he come close to that “limit” that he now talks about in the Caja Mágica, where at least he was able to give a significant acceleration; He raised the tone against Alex de Miñaur, Pedro Cachín and Jiri Lehecka – the first stop against Darwin Blanch was a mere filming – but the urgency of the calendar and his desire to be able to say goodbye to his fetish tournament by truly competing lead him to an unavoidable space in the all or nothing: either he gets a more or less hopeful response from his body, or he returns to the infirmary. That’s how he transmits it, without middle ground. Rome is the last testing ground, the final option. And he, he says, feels that he is going in the right direction, even though the graph before Bergs described sawtooth and he performs like a cyclothymic player, far from the linearity of yesteryear.

“I haven’t played much for almost two years, so I have to accept that my level is like that, sometimes higher and sometimes lower. It’s not like it used to be before, which was very stable. Come and go. Now I need to find that stability again. But in training I am feeling the ball much better, and I feel closer to showing something probably much more positive than what I have shown until today,” he says, currently ranked 305th on the circuit. “Today’s thing [por este jueves] It’s very positive. Matches like this help to get closer to the demanding levels of the circuit, although at the tennis level I must do better because I am capable of doing it,” he adds after having captured his 70th victory in Rome, where he has been crowned ten times. “I may not play well in two days, it is a possibility, but I hope I can play much better than today to start thinking differently. Let’s see,” Nadal closes, voluntarily exposed to an extreme judgment: yes or no, Paris.

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