The World no. 3 Rafael Nadal has decided to pull out of Wimbledon and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Nadal took the hard decision as he stated that it was crucial for him to listen to his body. The Spaniard added that he took the decision after having a discussion with his team.

Nadal opined that the idea is to prolong his career and he feels he has taken the right decision as he needs to manage his workload. The southpaw was recently defeated at favorite French Open by the eventual winner Novak Djokovic. Nadal went down after 4 hours and 11 minutes in an epic four-set clash against his arch-rival, which ended his dominance at the Roland Garros.

In fact, Nadal had faced some lower back issues before the Australian Open. He was able to make it to the quarterfinal of the first slam of the year but was beaten by Stefanos Tsitsipas after being two sets up. Subsequently, Nadal decided to pull out of some events as he wanted to be at his best for the French Open.

Nadal wrote on his Twitter account, “Hi all, I have decided not to participate at this year’s Championships at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Tokyo. It’s never an easy decision to take but after listening to my body and discussing it with my team I understand that it is the right decision”.

He added, “The goal is to prolong my career and continue to do what makes me happy, that is to compete at the highest level and keep fighting for those professional and personal goals at the maximum level of competition”.

Nadal added that as there was only a two weeks gap between the completion of French Open and the start of Wimbledon, it didn’t give him much time to recover.

“The fact that there has only been 2 weeks between RG and Wimbledon, didn’t make it easier on my body to recuperate after the always demanding clay court season. They have been two months of great effort and the decision I take is focused on looking at the mid and long term”.