In absolutely shocking announcement on Wednesday afternoon, Rafael Nadal declared that he has been forced to withdraw from this year’s Roland Garros tournament with a wrist injury.

Nadal said that his left wrist has some form of injury, one which he believes is in the sheath of the tendon. He played with a painkilling injection in his second-round match on Thursday, but the pain worsened overnight and he has been warned not to play on it or the wrist could break.

Rafael Nadal Withdraws from French Open with Wrist Injury

Nadal said that he first felt something in Madrid but was told that if he played with anti-inflammatories it would be fine. However, after the tournament in Rome it felt much worse.

Nadal came into this year’s French Open seeking his tenth title at this Slam. He has only lost twice here since winning his first Roland Garros title back in 2005, once to Robin Soderling (in 2009), and last year to Novak Djokovic.

This withdrawal is particularly difficult for Nadal, as he has spent the past few years not quite playing at his best level but was looking much closer to it in the past few weeks. He had only lost nine games in his first two matches here in Paris this year, in addition to a tournament win in Monte-Carlo and relatively impressive performances (even though he didn’t win either) in Madrid and Rome.

In the minutes since Nadal’s announcement, the aftershocks are already being seen. Betting markets have heavily deflated the price on Novak Djokovic winning the tournament, with good reason.

Nadal’s tremendous success and unprecedented nine titles at the French Open have earned him the nickname of “The King of Clay”. The French Open is where Nadal has truly, more than anywhere else, asserted his dominance on a tennis court. Without him, the tournament is suddenly more open for just about every other player.

This marks only the second Slam since the 2003 French Open (in addition to Wimbledon 2013) in which neither Rafael Nadal nor Roger Federer has competed in the third round or beyond. The only former French Open champion remaining in the draw is now Stan Wawrinka, last year’s champion.

The immediate beneficiary of Nadal’s withdrawal is Marcel Granollers, who will receive a walkover into the fourth round.

No specific timetable has been set for Nadal’s return to tennis. Nadal said that there is a solution but it’s not very long-term, however it may have been that something was lost in translation there and that by “not long-term” he meant that the recovery period will not be too long.

Nadal did say that he hopes to be back in time for Wimbledon, and mentioned that the recovery time should be a few weeks or a month.

We will update this story as more information becomes available.

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