‘Hope to see you next year’: Rafael Nadal bids farewell to Wimbledon staff after his withdrawal due to abdominal injury

In a video posted by the Wimbledon official Twitter handle, the 22-time Grand Slam champion can been seen greeting all the staff.

Fond farewells with @RafaelNadal 😊#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/BCWLRhAMBk

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 8, 2022

“Thank you so much. Hope to see you next year,” said Nadal, while posing for photos with the fans.

Rafael Nadal was forced to withdraw from his Wimbledon semifinal due to the abdominal injury he sustained in the quarterfinal. He was scheduled to face Australia’s Nick Kyrgios.

The 36-year-old said that the injury will not allow him to win two more matches at Wimbledon. He added that he felt he had a good chance in the form that he was in, and even though the injury may not be a long-term one, he does not wish to aggravate it further.

“The communication is too late because even like that I was thinking the whole day about the decision to make but I think it don’t make sense to go, even if I tried a lot in my career to keep going. Very tough circumstances in that one I think it’s obvious if I keep going the injury is gonna get worse and worse,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Express.

“I made this decision because I can’t be competitive and win the next two matches. I don’t want to make things worse, but I am very sad.”

“For respect to myself in some way I don’t want to go out there not be competitive enough to play at the level that I need to play to achieve my goal, and big chance to make the things much worse,” he added.