Rafael Nadal's history of avoiding hard court: All major tournaments the Spaniard has missed on the surface in last 5 years ft. Indian Wells 2024

Rafael Nadal is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He has won 22 Grand Slam titles and 36 Masters 1000 titles. He has also spent 209 weeks as the world No. 1. However, his career has been plagued by injuries, without which he could have been even more successful.

Especially during the last five years or so, Nadal’s aging body has refused to continuously endure the grinds of professional tennis. As a result, he has often been forced to withdraw from several tournaments. The latest such withdrawal came recently when he was forced to withdraw from the ensuing BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

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Rafael Nadal has missed the majority of hard court tournaments during the last five years:

The Spaniard has missed the majority of Masters 1000 tournaments held on hard courts from 2019 onwards. His expertise on clay courts has often influenced him to save himself for the European clay swing.

Since 2019, Nadal has participated twice in Indian Wells, once each in Cincinnati and Toronto, thrice in Paris, and has not played in either Shanghai or Miami. Thus, he has missed 19 of the 25 Masters 1000 tournaments held on hard courts in the last five years.

The Spaniard's appearances in Grand Slam events on hard courts have been considerably more frequent, but not without exceptions. He missed the Australian Open this year and played in only two of the last five US Open tournaments.

However, to his credit, Nadal won the US Open in 2019 and the Australian Open in 2022. He has also missed two of the five ATP Tour Finals since 2019 and did not participate in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

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Rafael Nadal’s playing style and surface specialization have been key in this regard:

As mentioned earlier, Rafael Nadal is easily more comfortable on clay than on hard courts. He is also, without a doubt, the greatest ever player on clay, with 14 French Open and 26 Masters 1000 titles on the surface.

As a result, it can be argued that Nadal has had a propensity to save himself for the clay court season since he turned 30. The Spaniard is also a very good player on hard courts, having won six Majors and 10 Masters 1000 titles on it. However, he has often been dominated by Novak Djokovic on hard courts during the past decade or so.

Moreover, Nadal does not have a particularly powerful serve or return, which means there are fewer easy points on offer for him. It forces him to grind points out on most occasions, which has taken its toll on his body.

The Spaniard has already made it clear that he might not play on the ATP Tour past this year. With tennis to be held on the clay of Roland Garros in July-August this year, the 37-year-old might target that to be his swansong.

Prior to that, Nadal could participate in at least a couple of Masters 1000 events on clay and also the French Open. However, it remains to be seen whether his body permits him to do that.