It is difficult to accept, it’s hard for me – Rafael Nadal after heartbreaking exit from Australian Open

Toward the end of the second set against Mackenzie McDonald in the second round of the Australian Open, Rafael Nadal suffered a hip injury. The veteran took a medical timeout but it didn’t help him and it became a matter of finishing the game in the third set for him.

The American won the biggest match of his career by 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 and the Spaniard had to face a heartbreaking exit from the Happy Slam. Nadal has faced a plethora of injuries in his career and he has always bounced back stronger in his long career.

The Spaniard admitted it is difficult for him to accept and it will be a hard recovery road from here for him as age is not his friend.

“Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s difficult to accept. Sometimes you feel super tired about all this stuff in terms of injuries. Can’t come here and say, lying, that the life is fantastic and staying positive and keep fighting. Not now. Tomorrow starts another day,” Nadal said in the post-match press conference. “Now it’s a tough moment. It’s a tough day, and you need to accept that, and keep going.

“In the end, I can’t complain about my life at all. So just in terms of sports and in terms of injuries and tough moments, I mean, that’s another one. Just can’t say that I am not destroyed mentally at this time, because I will be lying.

“Yeah, it’s hard for me. But let’s see. I mean, hopefully it’s nothing too bad. In the end [it] has been three positive weeks in terms of practice. So I really hope that [this] doesn’t put me out of the court for a long time, because then it’s tough to make all the recovery again. It’s not only the recovery. It’s all the amount of work that you need to put together to come back at a decent level.”

The 36-year-old admitted he was facing issues in his hip before the match but it was nothing like he felt in the second set against the American.

“It has been a couple of days like this, but nothing like today in that movement. I don’t know. We’re going to start talking about that now, but I don’t know what’s going on, if it’s muscle, if it’s [the] joint,” Nadal said. “I have history in the hip that I had issues. I had to do treatments in the past, address a little. Was not this amount of problem. Now I feel I cannot move.

“But I don’t know ’til I do the test and all this stuff, I don’t know. It’s difficult to make resolution if it’s a muscle, if it’s the joint, if it’s the cartilage. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s it.”