welcome inside everybody Jason alongside a couple of former Champions here Lindsey Davenport and Jim curan Jim let's start with you wasn't totally unexpected was it no I was in Las Vegas for the Netflix slam when he and Carlos alcarez played on Sunday and and Nadal looked compromised at that event he wasn't arching uh his back the way he normally would to serve his serve numbers were a little bit lower than we would have expected and he was not moving with the same type of Freedom neither was Ca
rlos for that matter given his ankle role in Rio so I can't say that this is totally surprising but it is Thoroughly disappointing uh for Rafa first and foremost he he came so early that famous picture of him and Novak on the same plane Novak spending so much time in Los Angeles uh doing various uh fun things including practicing at UCLA and going to Lakers games and Rafa here at Porcupine Creek at Larry Ellison's private Resort uh training and practicing before the event in Vegas so he doing ev
erything right and enjoying it and unfortunately he's had a setback and that's uh that's definitely disappoint pointing for him but I think all of us understand the big picture goal is to be ready for Roland Goos and and I don't think he decided that there was it was worth the risk to try and come out and play and he also said that there was a second page to that which you can find on on Twitter where he says you know I'm just I don't want to lie to the fans and lie to myself I'm just not ready
to compete at a level that I'm comfortable with Rafa as always an honest broker and he he likes to give 100% doesn't he Lindsay every time he steps on the match Co we saw in Las Vegas he wasn't quite quite there and he didn't have a lot of time between then and now to really sort of push the body and test it bitly disappointing for all those tennis fans yeah really the fans here in in California are so excited to be able to watch him play again and he was playing so well in Brisbane earlier this
year his first tournament back then he felt it looked like the hip in the groin area again went back in rehabbed as Jim mentioned we were so excited to hear he was going to make the trip out west but again you can't expect him to go out and compete when he's compromised and and if you watched him practice around it didn't seem like he was able to move even after playing in Las Vegas gave it his best efforts he loves it out here he loves it in the desert but these courts are gritty and it's toug
h to really move around and now we wonder will we see Rafa at a tournament again in the states we hope we're going to see him on the clay in Europe hope we'll get to see him at Roland garos again but I don't know there's time in the states I don't know if he'll be back what will the focus be for Rafa from here on in prior to the European clayt swing listen there there's plenty of opportunities for him to get the match play that he values so much right you've got Monte Carlo you have Barcelona yo
u have Madrid you have Rome you have a a full Buffet of options and obviously he'll gain access to any of those tournaments he wants at any time the question is what type of a schedule do they think as a team is going to set him up to be ready to make a run in ringos if his body allows him that now you know fingers crossed we all wish uh we talked a lot about Andy Murray today and you know he looks like he might be stepping off the stage here soon Rafa feels like the end is nigh with him as well
you just want them to have that final run at the major that means the most of them and for Murray it's Wimbledon for for Rafa it's Roland garos and that's fast approaching you know I mean time comes quickly right it felt like we're just in Australia now we're already in the in the sunshine double we'll blink and we'll be in Paris and and hopefully we'll be seeing Rafa there in the flesh and not just that beautiful statue of him there because he deserves it and tennis fans around the world deser
ve to get a chance to see him there one more time if we can but you know his body's um is definitely has some different ideas at the moment
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Wise words from Jim Courier
I’m getting very tired of how disappointed we are expecting These Players to play. Even buy tickets to see them and they withdraw. Rafa is becoming annoying
I’m a Rafa fan, but there is always drama with him.😅
I am not Rafa fan by an inch, but doing that times after times to his fans who must have bought tickets/accomodation to see him is pretty horrible. How many times already in the first 2-3 months of the year? He is getting worse and worse, yet MSM is silent...
Jim's such a great communicator it's astonishing
— I don’t think Rafa is injured but he’s not 100%. — I think he just wants to preempt any potential injuries now on the hard courts before the start of the European clay court season. — Perhaps even Estoril (Portugal) 250 before Monte-Carlo? — I think he’ll just play the European clay court tournaments and call it quits: — Monte-Carlo: April 7-14 — Barcelona: April 15-21 — Madrid: April 24-May 5 — Rome: May 8-19 — French Open: May 26-June 9
Rafa needs to retire his making a fool of himself.
He can take his Netflix money and Saudi money and buy himself a golden diamond wheelchair.
Who could have seen this coming?
Damn rafa you should’ve just be honest, that you will only play officially on clay this year. That way everyone will leave you alone. All these sudden pullouts, they are not helping…😅
Why didn’t he pull out before the draw??? Surely nothing dramatic happened in the last few days. That way he could give someone else a chance to play
All the best for Rafa. 💪
This Nadal makes fun of us and makes him ridiculous to announce to play and then retire again and again! He missed a good moment of retirement! Don’t bother any more!
The words of the great Mike Tyson when he lost by abandonment in his last fight were "I don't have the stomach for this, because I don't have that ferocity that I used to have. I'm not an animal anymore. I'm a different human being. I made a mistake trying to deceive people. I don't have the heart for this. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to dishonor the sport that I love so much. I don't want to keep fighting. I want to live a different life. I want to enjoy life. I want to be happy" They were very sad but real words because Tyson didn't want to deceive the fans, the press or anyone who still believed that he could return to glory, but most importantly, he didn't want to deceive himself. Nadal is not at the level of the best and he knows it but the millions he receives from the sponsors (while he is active), from exhibitions and from the Arabs is something that weighs more in his decisions. As the AC/DC song says: money talks..
rafa ty for the good times.... but i think it's been last times
That Netflix slam cheque came thru and he bounced 😂
Healthy enough to grab the fat Netflix money. Lame!
I can hear Jim Courier all day.
He realized that he won’t ever catch up with Djokovic in terms of slam won. So now he’s trying to maximize the $$$ even if this makes him a joke. The problem is that tournament organizers keep giving him Wild Cards while they should just ignore him and make space for one player who deserves his spot.
I remember the early days of tennis channel when Jason Goodall and Robbie Koenig would cover the European tournaments. They would never show their face because I think they were just buying the play by play commentary from BBC. Then ESPN actually hired Goodall and TC hired Koenig and we were finally able to see what they looked like because even their ATPtour website page didn’t have a photo. Like if you’re an old school tennis fan and remember that!