Montreal Masters tournament director Eugene Lepierre has confirmed that Rafael Nadal indeed wants to compete at this year’s Montreal tournament edition. Nadal, 36, had a disappointing and unfortunate end to his Wimbledon campaign as he was forced to give a walkover to Nick Kyrgios in their semifinal match because of an abdominal injury.
The Montreal Masters takes place between August 7-14 and Nadal is hoping to be fit for the Canadian Masters event. According to Lepierre, Nadal is expected to kick off his preparation for the summer hard court swing this Monday.
“Nadal really wants to come to Montreal and his hotel rooms are already booked,” Lapierre revealed, per the Daily Express. “He was sent a crate of balls to use during the tournament to prepare. He should return to training on Monday.”
Nadal pulled out because he didn’t want to risk a more serious injury
Last Thursday, Nadal had a day off at Wimbledon but he called a press conference. The moment Nadal called for a presser, everyone knew what was about to happen.
“Unfortunately, as you can imagine if I am here, I have to pull out from the tournament, no?” Nadal said in a press conference he held to announce his withdrawal from the Wimbledon semifinal. “As everybody saw yesterday, I have been suffering with the pain in abdominal.
Even if I tried lot of times during my career to keep going under very tough circumstances, in that one I think it’s obvious that if I keep going, the injury going to be worst and worst. That’s the thing that I can say now.
Feel very sad to say that.” Also, Nadal said one of the reasons why he decided to pull out was because he didn’t want to risk aggravating his injury and then being out for a longer period. In Montreal, Nadal is a three-time champion and it remains to be seen if he will be able to compete at the tournament in early August.
