There have been a lot of great comebacks in sports. Players have bounced back from severe setbacks and have made impact in their respective sports again, but, there have been very few players who actually have got better after the setbacks. Rafael Nadal is one of those very few.
What a comeback this great man has made after going through that terrible knee injury. He sat out of action for months, saw other players growing in confidence and winning Grand Slams. He moved down in the rankings. He was missing one tournament after another. But, he didn’t lose hope and that’s the quality of a fighter.
Even if he had decided to hang his racquets when he was going through that awful time, he would have made it to the list of top 5 singles players of all-time. But, you don’t play sports for achievements and praise only. You play them for satisfaction as well and Nadal was not satisfied. That hunger was still in him, he had to win more tournaments and for that, he had to come back.
He came back and came back in style. He has played a total of 63 games after returning to the tennis arena and the no. of games that he has lost is only 3. That itself tells the story.
The US Open title that he won a few days back by getting better of Novak Djokovic in the final was his 13th Grand Slam singles title. Now, he has just 4 less than Roger Federer and the kind of form he is in, it seems he will be able to overtake the Swiss maestro. But, for that, Nadal will have to make sure that he doesn’t suffer any fitness setback again.