Nadal withdraws, Kyrgios in final 

It was the shock announcement of the evening. During a press conference organised specifically for the occasion, Rafael Nadal announced his withdrawal from the semi-final he was due to play this Friday against Kyrgios. As a result, the Australian is now directly qualified for what will be his first Grand Slam final.

Le choix de la sagesse

A shocking announcement, but one that is quite predictable given the results of his tests today. Rafa has a 7 millimetre abdominal tear !

“I was thinking the all day about what decision to make. But I think it’s not make sense to go “.

In this special press conference, the Majorcan announced that he would have to withdraw from the tournament because of his abdominal injury. He preferred to be reasonable so as not to risk seeing his career come to a premature end. He added: “It’s obvious that if I continued, the injury would get worse and worse“. Rafa also made it clear that with such an injury he knew he would not be able to win two more matches.

The 22-time Grand Slam winner had already indicated after his heroic match against Taylor Fritz that he had been suffering from abdominal pain for a week and that it had intensified considerably during the match. During the game he had to call the medical staff twice.

The man who won the Australian Open and French Open this year sees his London adventure come to an end here, and more importantly, his dreams of a calendar Grand Slam go up in smoke.

The long-awaited opposition take off

Although this forfeit opens the doors to the final, the Australian is certainly one of the first disappointed. Indeed, he had been enthusiastic about the idea of facing Rafa in the semi-final, as he respects him a lot and has already had some good matches with him. And when he found out that the Spanish was definitely going to be his opponent, he said, “It’s probably going to be the most watched match of all time, I tell it.”

Reminder : Kyrgios won their first ever meeting at Wim in 2014 (7-6, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3), before Nadal got his revenge five years later (6-3, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6). It was a long-awaited match that promised to be a phenomenal spectacle, with Kyrgios in the form of his life and Nadal as impressive as ever. Unfortunately, the outcome is a heartbreaker.

Following the announcement, the Australian posted a sober but classy message on his social networks: “Different players. Different personalities. Rafael Nadal, I hope you recover well and we all hope to see you healthy again. See you next time…”

On Sunday, Nick Kyrgios will have to face the winner of the Djokovic-Norrie semi-final to win the first Grand Slam of his career.