World No. 4 tennis star Rafael Nadal, who was forced to pull out of Wimbledon 2022 due to an abdominal tear he suffered in the quarterfinals against American Taylor Fritz, bid an emotional goodbye to Wimbledon staff while preparing to leave the All England Lawn Tennis Club with his team. “Thank you so much. Hope to see you next year,” said Nadal as he posed for photos with his fans. The video of the farewell was shared by the Wimbledon official Twitter handle.

Watch the video here – 

Also Read: Kyrgios wishes Nadal ‘quick recovery’ after Spaniard withdraws from Wimbledon

A day before the highly-anticipated showdown with Australian Nick Kyrgios, the 22-time Grand Slam champion announced that he was withdrawing from Wimbledon 2022. 

“I have to pull out of the tournament as I have been suffering with pain in my abdominal. Unfortunately, I have to pull out from the tournament,” the dejected Spaniard told the reporters at a press conference. 

Also Read: Wimbledon 2022: Djokovic expects ‘a lot of fireworks’ in final vs Kyrgios

“As everybody saw yesterday (in the quarter-final), I have been suffering with abdominal pain. I knew something was not okay there. Yeah, that’s confirmed. I have a tear in the muscle in the abdomen.”

“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. 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,” he added.