?It?s Rather Absurd? – Rafael Nadal?s Old Take On Verbal Coaching Perfectly Aligns With Serena Williams? Ex-coach?s Opinion

22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal is arguably one of the best tennis players of all time. Recently, he withdrew from the semi-finals of the Wimbledon Championships due to an abdominal injury. Thus, he missed the chance to win his 23rd Grand Slam title and his third Major title of the season.

Apart from being an exceptional tennis player on the court, he is also known for his integrity on and outside the tennis court. In 2015, during the Wimbledon Championships, he faced many accusations regarding on-court coaching, along with the Serbian Novak Djokovic.

Rafael Nadal talked about on-court coaching at Wimbledon Championships

During the 2015 Wimbledon Championships, Nadal’s coach was his uncle, Toni Nadal. According to many reports, many caught Uncle Toni giving instructions to Nadal during matches.

Speaking about this controversy, Nadal said, “It?s an old regulation. It was logical many years ago because some players had coaches, and others didn?t, so this was protection for those who didn?t have coaches, But now everybody has a coach so today I don?t see any player in this circuit who doesn?t have a coach so it?s rather absurd that everyone pays for a coach to help him and then when you need him the most you can?t talk to him.”

During this event, Novak Djokovic also suffered from the same controversy. However, he did not want to give an answer to the media, as he did not receive any coaching violation on the court.

Meanwhile, in a recent announcement, both ATP and WTA have decided to trial off-court coaching for the second half of the season. According to the new rules, coaches will be able to give advice to the players from their designated spot. Moreover, it will be applicable at the US Open this year as well.

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Serena Williams’ former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, welcomed this decision by the ATP and WTA. Notably, he also suffered this same kind of accusations, famously during the 2018 US Open final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.

Nadal is out of the tennis court for 3-4 weeks

During the recent Wimbledon Championships, Nadal played some extraordinary tennis to reach the semi-finals. Especially, in the quarter-final against Taylor Fritz, he showed his tremendous heart to win the match despite playing the entire match with an abdominal injury. Later, he found out that he had a 7 mm tear on his abdominal muscle.

As a result of this injury, he pulled out of his semi-final clash against Nick Kyrgios, as he did not want to aggravate the injury further.

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Later, at the press conference, he talked about missing tennis for three to four weeks to recover from the injury. However, he’s hopeful about returning for the next Grand Slam tournament, i.e. the US Open.