Rafael Nadal has revealed that he spent most of his career playing in pain due to a chronic foot injury, which he managed to overcome to win 22 grand slam titles. The Spaniard, who retired in 2024, said he took immense risks with his health to prolong his career, as detailed in a Netflix series called Rafa.
“I’ve had to make decisions about my health, where you are on the borderline between right or wrong. But if I hadn’t explored all that, I probably would have had 10 fewer grand slams … this is the reality,” Nadal told the BBC on Friday.
Nadal was diagnosed with Mueller-Weiss syndrome after breaking a foot during the 2005 Madrid Open final, months after winning his first French Open at age 19. The condition, possibly caused by extensive childhood training, put his career at risk, but he refused to give up.
The injury haunted him even as he won 13 more grand slams over the next nine years. “Tennis became a race against time. Always having the doubt in my head of: ‘How long can I last with this foot?’ I never knew how long my career would last,” Nadal said. “I always thought: ‘Maybe it’s the last year, so there’s no time to stop.’”
The injury led to other health issues, including tendinitis in his left knee and intestinal perforations from painkillers. During the 2022 French Open final, his last grand slam win, he had no feeling in one leg due to anaesthetic injections. “The key was the suffering was less than my passion and my happiness for what I was doing,” the 39-year-old said.
