Rafael Nadal: Italian Open champion will have big concern ahead of French Open - Croft

That’s according to former British No 1 Annabel Croft, who believes Nadal will waste no time in returning to the practice courts.

Nadal had to dig deep to win the Italian Open earlier today against Alexander Zverev.

After taking the first set 6-1, Nadal then struggled and cut a frustrated figure in the second with Zverev beginning to take control.

And the German went a break up in the third before a downpour forced a short break in proceedings.

Nadal was able to return and see out the match and return to world No 1 in the process.

But Croft suggests the 31-year-old will have some cause for concern heading into Roland Garros.

“There definitely will be and I can imagine he will be getting back to work next week pretty early,” Croft said on Sky Sports.

“He’ll need a tiny rest and a break and then start thinking about the French Open up ahead and

“I think he’ll still be putting in a lot of work to try to counter some of the things that happened in this match.

“Having said that, it will still be a confidence boost that fact he was able to get through this one.

“It would be a very different situation if he lost this match, then we would be having quite a few questions over where that confidence is at.

“But you just have to marvel at how he coped with the whole situation.”

She added: “It was very evident that he didn’t want to leave the court.

“So he clearly felt at that stage that he still had a great shot of getting back into the match."