This is a pile of crap. Excuse my harshness here.

Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from defending his 2008 Wimbledon title due to a knee injury. After his loss in an exhibition the other day, Nadal clearly was leaning toward not playing, however I think none of us truly expected the Spaniard to throw in the 2009 towel.

I for one am pissed off.
Nadal - “When I start a tournament like Wimbledon, it is to try to win, and my feeling right now is I’m not ready to play to win.”

This reminds me of the character Abraham from Chariots of Fire - “If I can’t win, I won’t run”. His wife responds - “If you don’t run, you can’t win.”
This moment in the movie was to signify the low point in his running career.

Believe me, I have had surgery on my right knee, and still haven’t repaired a partially torn ACL. I know knee problems. I also know about toughing it out not playing 100%. You lower your head, take the pain, and suck it up.

Nadal isn’t just some guy out there, he’s the defending champion. If there is ANY time this guy has to tough it out, now is that time. This blog is the least of his media worries, I expect him to take some heat on this…Although we can surely expect some of the main streamers to play lame here.

I’m entirely disapointed in Nadal, and I absolutely 100% think less of him because of this decision.

Other points to consider:
1) What the hell is he doing playing exhibitions at this point?
2) While there are mandatory tournaments, it’s up to Nadal to manage his playing schedule, this includes all non-atp sanctioned events
3) This is as lame-duck as withdrawing mid-match, finals with a non-critical injury.

This is a sad sad story.

MarkOskar.

Original post by Mark Oskar