PARIS — A downbeat tennis season dipped deeper into a minor key Friday when Rafael Nadal, who has won the French Open nine times, withdrew from the tournament because of a left wrist injury.
The abrupt announcement sent shock waves through Roland Garros, where Nadal has cast the longest shadow across the red clay for more than a decade, winning more singles titles here than any other player in history.
The decision was all the more surprising because Nadal had advanced to the third round Thursday with a typically lopsided 6-3, 6-0, 6-3 victory over Facundo Bagnis of Argentina. But Nadal said he played that match only after receiving a painkilling injection in his left wrist. He spoke at Friday’s news conference with the wrist in a blue brace. His spokesman Benito Perez Barbadillo later confirmed that the problem was an inflamed tendon sheath.
“One of the toughest press conferences of my career,” said Nadal, who was seeded fourth.
“It’s obvious if it’s not Roland Garros, I will probably not take the risks of playing the first two days,” he said. “But it’s the most important event of the year for me, so we tried our best. We take risks yesterday. That’s why we played with anesthetic injection, so without feeling at all in the wrist. But you know when I am coming to Roland Garros, I am coming thinking about winning the tournament. To win the tournament, I need five more matches, and the doctor says that’s 100 percent impossible.”
Nadal’s withdrawal allowed his would-be opponent Marcel Granollers a walkover into the fourth round, and could make the road to the title considerably less arduous for No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic, who has yet to win the French Open and could have faced Nadal in the semifinals.
Nadal said that he had a magnetic resonance imaging scan and other medical tests and that his longtime doctor, Ángel Ruíz-Cotorro, had advised him against continuing and told him that he risked a tear if he did so.
“If I continue to play, it will break, and that will mean months off the tour,” Nadal said.
Nadal did not rule out playing in Wimbledon, which begins June 27. But that could be a stretch, particularly with the emphasis he has placed on competing in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.