NEW YORK — Second seed Rafa Nadal said he will recover after his shock fourth-round loss to American Frances Tiafoe at the US Open on Monday (May 5).
Tiafoe hadn’t reached a Major’s quarterfinals since the 2019 Australian Open but had no trouble ending the Spaniard’s path to a record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam title as Nadal struggled with his serve and return .
Nadal retired from Wimbledon this year with a serious abdominal injury and had barely played when he arrived at Flushing Meadows but told reporters that Tiafoe was simply the better competitor.
“We can whine or complain about many things now, but I don’t think that will change anything about the situation,” he told reporters.
“We can’t find any excuses. We gotta be enough (of a) critic with myself. That’s the only way we can improve or I understand that’s the only way you can find solutions.”
Nadal won at the Australian Open and Roland-Garros this year and reached the Indian Wells final, but his good times ended abruptly when he told reporters he couldn’t continue his semi-final showdown with Nick Kyrgios at the All England club.
A straight-set loss to Borna Coric in his opening game in Cincinnati showed little optimism and he described the injury to reporters in New York as “dangerous” and “risky”.
In his first appearance with the New York hard-court major in three years, he dropped his opening set against first-round wildcard opponent Rinky Hilikata, an early indication that he wasn’t operating at 100 percent.
“I honestly trained well the week before. But then when the competition started my level went down,” said Nadal.
“For some reason, I don’t know, mental issues have been happening in relation to a lot of things over the past few months… But whatever. In the end, the only thing that happened is that we went into the fourth round of the US Open and I faced a player who was better than me.
“And that’s why I have a plane back home.”
However, the 36-year-old conceded that his 24-year-old opponent had time on his side.
“Tennis is often a positional sport, isn’t it? If not, you have to be very, very fast and very young,” he said.
“I’m not in this moment anymore.”