The operation that threatens Rafa Nadal's last years: "Surely he should retire"

• Nadal statement: "I don't know what will happen after the tournament"

• Report Nadal's uncertain pain: "An injury that does not heal"

«I'm going lame many days of my life.

I have a chronic and incurable foot injury.

.

May 5th.

«I do not intend to play the victim, but I have what I have.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up terrible because today I'm not going to drink anything.

I live with lots of inflammatory."

Rafael Nadal.

May 12.

"I don't know what will happen after Roland Garros.

I have what I have in my foot and if I don't find a solution it will be difficult."

Rafael Nadal.

may 31.

In the last month, after each victory and also each defeat, Nadal remembers that his legend is over.

The injury to his left foot that he has been dragging since he was 19 years old, the Müller Weiss syndrome, is tormenting him and it is very possible that sooner rather than later he will say enough.

Is this the last Roland Garros for him?

Due to his level of play it seems impossible, but not due to his illness.

Only he knows the degree of pain he is enduring, but from his statements it can be concluded that the therapies that have always helped him no longer work - shoes and special insoles, mesotherapy, physiotherapy, infiltrations... - and that he need more.

What is the problem?

That, as he himself recognized, his illness has no solution.

Or, rather, that the only solution he has is to operate and in this case an operation is incompatible with playing tennis.

Dr.

, traumatologist at the HM Torrelodones University Hospital and medical director of the Spanish Federation of Winter Sports (RFEDI), explains it: «The most common surgery in these cases is arthrodesis, which would leave him without pain, but also without a great range of motion.

Müller Weiss syndrome means that, for various reasons, the scaphoid, a foot bone, has very poor blood flow and is therefore becoming necrotic.

The intervention would make it possible to fix it, to block it.

He could continue walking and even play light sports without impact, but he could hardly run, jump or move laterally as tennis demands.

Surely he should leave the tracks ».

According to the doctor, his illness, Müller Weiss syndrome, is rare in young people, but many other athletes have ended up retiring because one of their bones has lost its blood supply due to trauma, for example, and its replacement is complicated.

Even some, like the skier

, have ended up with complications in their daily lives despite her youth.

In the case of the bone that affects Nadal, there could be another treatment, more innovative, which could perhaps allow him to continue active but...

The alternative without certainties

“In recent years, instead of arthrodeses, which are more classic, more osteotomies are being tried.

If in arthrodesis the necrotic bone is fused to fix it, in osteotomies that bone is cut and one of the two fragments is placed in a position that corrects the deformity.

In principle, an osteotomy is compatible with a sporting life, but it would be necessary to analyze the degree of affectation that his scaphoid has and it cannot be guaranteed that the pain will disappear", analyzes Dr.

, professor of Podiatry at the Complutense University, who He was precisely present when Dr.

, one of the greatest experts on Müller Weiss, diagnosed Nadal years ago.

As he analyses, an osteotomy could grant the Spaniard another season of play, but the success-danger ratio may be unattractive.

At the end of the day, there is the possibility that he will have surgery, that he will have to go through a rehabilitation of between three and six months and that later his left foot will continue to hurt in each race, in each braking, in each hit.

At 36 years old -completed today-, the risk of having to retire anyway and of doing it, moreover, from home, without being able to play, is very high.

Faced with these options, perhaps in recent times it has been considered that it is better to leave it high, even with another Roland Garros title in the arms.

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