A nagging left foot injury forced Rafael Nadal out of the ATP Toronto Masters on Tuesday as top seed Daniil Medvedev rallied to reach the t...
A nagging left foot injury forced Rafael Nadal out of the ATP Toronto Masters on Tuesday as top seed Daniil Medvedev rallied to reach the third round.
Nadal, a five-time champion in Canada, pulled the plug on his participation before his scheduled second-round opener with plans to return to Spain for treatment of the injury which kept him from Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics.
“I’ve had this issue for a couple of months,” he said. “It is not a happy situation after all the success that I had here in Canada. I need to go back (to Mallorca) and try to find a way to be better again. With this pain, I’m not able to enjoy (playing).
“I believe that I am not able to compete at the level that I need because the foot doesn’t allow me to move the way that I need,” added Nadal, who was the second seed in the hardcourt tournament.
Top-seeded Russian Medvedev opened his week in the second round after a bye and staged a fightback to overhaul Kazakh Alexander Bublik 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Russian came back a changed man after a second-set rain delay.
“I was not playing well before the rain,” he said. “I was not feeling the ball...
