Rafael Nadal slips out of ATP’s top 10 world rankings for first time in 18 years due to injury
Rafael Nadal slips out of the world’s top ten for the first time in EIGHTEEN YEARS as the Spaniard drops to 13th in the rankings after not playing since his Australian Open campaign was marred by injury
- Rafael Nadal is out of the top ten of the ATP rankings for the first time since 2005
- Nadal, who has often struggled with injuries in recent years, has dropped to number 13
- It remains to be seen how long the 36-year-old tennis player will continue to play tennis
Rafael Nadal may have woken up this morning with a very different feeling – for the first time in almost 18 years he is not in the top ten in the world.
The 36-year-old Spaniard has slipped to thirteenth place in the ATP rankings and has not held such a highly regarded status in tennis since April 24, 2005.
This marks the end of a quietly astonishing period of consistency in a global individual sport. It is all the more remarkable that he can hardly claim to have had such an injury-free record as baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr., who once played 2,632 games without interruption.
When Nadal first broke into the top ten, Sir Tony Blair still had two years to go as Prime Minister and Sir Alex Ferguson eight years ahead of him as manager of Manchester United. The England cricket team had only just begun the summer which saw them play arguably the greatest Ashes series of all against Australia.
In the intervening period, the Mallorcan has maintained his place at the top of tennis, with his position there bolstered by his extraordinary French Open dominance.
Rafael Nadal is outside the top ten of the ATP Tour Rankings for the first time since 2005
On the twelve month system of roll-on, roll-off points, it helps if you’ve won Roland Garros fourteen times.
Nadal’s fall is partly due to the loss of the 600 he earned a year ago for reaching the Indian Wells final. In his absence, it was won late Sunday night by Carlos Alcaraz, beating Daniil Medvedev.
And were it not for the points dropped at Wimbledon – where he reached the semi-finals last year – he would still have a valued place in the top ten.
That, in turn, pushed Nadal’s heir back to world number one, acquiring Novak Djokovic, who is absent from the current run of tournaments due to the United States’ ongoing ban on those not vaccinated against Covid.
Nadal now has just 13 tournaments to count towards his status, due to the increasing struggle to keep himself fit enough to compete. He has not played since he lost in the second round of the Australian Open due to a hip problem.
However, he is back in practice and expects to play the Monte Carlo Open in mid-April, where Djokovic is also expected to appear next as they begin the run-up to the French Open.
Monte Carlo was also instrumental in helping Nadal stay in the top ten, winning it a total of 11 times.
After an extraordinary run at the top, Nadal has now dropped to 13th in the rankings
It is unclear how long the injured Spaniard will continue to play
How long the Spaniard will continue is uncertain. Although he is obsessed with tennis, he also has other interests in his life such as golf, poker and an academy of the same name and he is now a parent. His view seems to be that you are long retired, and in the GOAT debate he needs a win over the French this year to have any chance of fending off Djokovic, with whom he has 22 Grand Slam titles each. has his name on it.
Nadal will miss the Miami Open, which starts this week, where the remarkable Alcaraz – still two months away from his 20th birthday – will try to win the Sunshine Double after his triumph in the California desert.
After making the fourth round at Indian Wells, Jack Draper, 21, one of the biggest climbers this week, is back to No. 43. The slight tear in an abdominal muscle that helped pull him off against Alcaraz isn’t as bad as initially feared, and he is keeping his options open to play in Miami ahead of the men’s draw later on Monday.
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