There is a famous saying- ‘If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything.‘ Rafael Nadal has won 22 Grand Slam titles in his career, but the pain and sacrifices he had to go through to reach where he is today are unimaginable. He had to miss almost 16 major tournaments since turning a pro due to injuries and several health issues. His uncle and longtime coach, Toni Nadal, recently gave an interview in Mallorca,  highlighting the injury which made doctors say Rafael Nadal’s “career was over“.

In 2005, just four years after becoming a professional tennis player, Rafael Nadal was diagnosed with Mueller-Weiss syndrome. It’s a rare foot condition that is characterized by a misshapen navicular bone that causes early-onset degenerative arthritis in the surrounding joints that make up the ankle and mid-foot. For tennis players, the navicular bone is extremely crucial in helping them move about the court. Perhaps this is the exact reason why the doctors were so concerned at that time with Rafael Nadal’s career.

Toni Nadal thinks he and his nephew are extremely “lucky” to win so many titles altogether in the middle of these concerns. He said, “For me, it has been an unimaginable dream to win 22 Grand Slams after in 2005 the doctors told Rafael that his career was over due to his foot problem that caused him so much pain.”

The first time tennis fans were able to see how this chronic disease affected Rafael Nadal was during the 2005 Madrid Open. He was seen struggling a lot at that time and perhaps that was one time when Nadal thought about switching racquets with golf clubs! Toni Nadal has seen his ups and downs from a close distance.

Under the strict vigilance of his uncle, the tennis world saw the transition of the Mallorcan lad to a ‘tennis machine.’ He was the one who set a benchmark of endurance for Rafael Nadal and made him believe, “If you want something badly enough, no sacrifice is too great.” Nadal had to use custom foot orthotics to keep his career going. It allowed his ankle, rear-foot, and mid-foot to work more efficiently. In 2022, Rafael Nadal spoke about this injury elaborately.

“I have a chronic injury which has no treatment” – Rafael Nadal 

In May 2022, Rafael Nadal’s foot injury flared up yet again and he was unable to practice properly when his favorite Slam was knocking at the door. This made him more “frustrated” at that time. Then later on, he not only played the French Open that year but also clinched his 14th title over there. At that time, he even surpassed Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, with the number of Grand Slam titles.

Speaking on that journey he later revealed, “I have been playing with injections on the nerves to sleep the foot, and that’s why I was able to play during these two weeks. Because I have no feelings on my foot because my doctor was able to put anesthetic injections on the nerves. That takes out the feeling on my foot.“

He was so desperate to step onto the terre battue, that he completely ignored the fact that with less feelings on his foot, there were higher possibilities of twisting his ankles seriously. Following the 2022 French Open, he publicly stated that he was all set to undergo radiofrequency therapy which is an invasive procedure that injects small transmitters into the foot and overloads the area with radio waves.

Was it a permanent cure? “I have a chronic injury which has no treatment. That’s part of my life,” Nadal gave the answer in the Wimbledon that year itself. Do you think Rafael Nadal could’ve achieved a lot more in his career without these injuries?