Rafael Nadal to miss French Open, likely to retire in 2024

Rafael Nadal said he will likely retire from professional tennis in 2024, plus he will miss Roland Garros this year for the first time in 19 years with a left hip flexor injury that has sidelined him from competition since January’s Australian Open.

“Next year, that’s probably going to be my last year in a professional tour,” Nadal said in a Thursday afternoon press conference in his native Mallorca. “That’s my idea, even that I can’t say 100 percent that’s going to be like this, because you never know what can happen, but my idea and my motivation is try to enjoy and try to say goodbye of all the tournaments that have been important for me in my tennis career.”

The French Open begins May 28 with coverage on NBC and Peacock.

Nadal, the record 14-time French Open champion, said he will stop playing tennis “for a while” due to his injury. He estimated it could be one and a half to four months.

“We were not able to find the solution to the problem that I had in Australia,” he said.

On Jan. 19, Nadal said the normal recovery time for the injury was six to eight weeks. But it has been prolonged for the 36-year-old.

This past Sunday, a French sports daily L’Equipe report quoted a tournament director saying that Nadal’s agent Carlos Costa said Nadal was in “a race against time” to be ready for the French Open, according to translations.

Nadal last missed the French Open in 2004, when he had a stress fracture in his left ankle as a 17-year-old who had already beaten Roger Federer.

In 2005, he made his French Open debut and won the title, the first of his men’s record-tying 22 Grand Slam singles crowns.

Nadal shares that record with Djokovic, a two-time French Open champion. The 35-year-old Serb can now break the tie in Paris