The injuries continued for the elite of men’s tennis Tuesday, as top-ranked Rafael Nadal retired down by 0-2 in the fifth set of his Australian Open quarterfinal with Marin Cilic.
Nadal took a two-set-to-one lead after winning a third-set tiebreaker in typically combative fashion, pumping both arms and shouting after completing the task.
But down by 1-4 in the fourth set, he took a medical timeout and was treated on court while lying on his back. Trainer Per Bastholt worked on Nadal’s upper right leg. At one point, Nadal placed a towel over his face as he grimaced in pain.
He returned to the court and, after losing the fourth set, began hobbling between points as Cilic, the powerful sixth-seeded Croatian who played boldly throughout the match, continued to take big and often effective risks with his groundstrokes.
he quarter-final was a battle that lasted three hours and 52 minutes, before a hip injury forced Nadal to come to the net to concede at 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-2, 2-0, handing Cilic a spot in the last four.
The sixth-seeded Cilic will now face unseeded British player Kyle Edmund, who earlier ousted third seed Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in a four-set battle to reach his first grand slam semi-final.
Afterwards, Nadal was vague about the exact nature of the problem, saying that he could not be sure until he undergoes scans. But he continued to complain that tennis’s authorities are showing insufficient regard for players’ bodies. It is a point he has made many times over the years, most recently on the eve of this tournament.
“Somebody who is running the tour should think little bit about what's going on,” said Nadal. “Too many people getting injured. I don't know if they have to think a little bit about the health of the players. Not for now that we are playing, but there is life after tennis. I don't know if we keep playing on these very, very hard surfaces what's going to happen in the future with our lives.”
