August 20 2021 Spanish tennis great Rafael Nadal announced via social media that he would not play for the rest of 2021 due to ill health. Nadal said in a statement that a foot injury had plagued him for a year and that he had missed the Wimbledon Open and the Tokyo Olympics, as well as the upcoming U.S. Open.
Nadal explained in a statement that the foot injury had plagued him since 2005, but that the pain caused by the injury in the past year had been much greater than expected, so after communicating with the team and family, he made the decision to withdraw from the 2021 season and that he would make every effort to return to his best.
Nadal’s last match of the 2021 season was at the Washington Masters on August 6th, when he lost to South African Harris.
