22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal will not play in the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, as revealed in social media posts on Thursday. He will instead use the coming months to prepare for the 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held on clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros.
“During my post-match press conference at Roland Garros, I was asked about my summer calendar and since then I have been practicing on clay. It was announced yesterday that I will play at the summer Olympics in Paris, my last Olympics,” Nadal posted to X.
“With this goal, we believe that the best for my body is not to change surface and keep playing on clay until then,” he continued. “It’s for this reason that I will miss playing at the championships this year at Wimbledon.”
Nadal has hinted on multiple occasions that 2024 will be his last season on the ATP tour. If so, his final Wimbledon match would have been during the 2022 championships, when he defeated Taylor Fritz in a quarterfinal thriller. Nadal missed almost all of 2023 due to a hip injury.
It remains unknown if the tennis tournament at the Olympic Games, which will take place from July 27 to Aug. 4, will be Nadal’s final tournament.
Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports
