RAFAEL NADAL says he will not play a warm-up event before Wimbledon next month in a bid to rest before the grass-court event at SW19.
Rafael Nadal won his 12th French Open title with a four-set victory over Dominic Thiem in the final.
Nadal re-wrote the history books with a 6-3 5-7 6-1 6-1 victory and has already started thinking about his preparation for Wimbledon – which gets underway on July 1.
On Monday, the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart and the Libema Open in s-Hertogenbosch begin and the following week ATP 500 events will be played at Queens and Halle – but Nadal has made a decision regarding his build-up work.
In 2018, after winning in Paris, Nadal pulled out of a scheduled apperance at the Fever-Tree Championships and despite no match practice on grass, went on to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
And speaking to the media after his victory on Sunday, Nadal told reporters he would rather rest than play an event before Wimbledon.
He said: “I know I played a great event last year. I have been able to be very close to win another title there.
“As everybody knows, I love to play on grass. And as everybody knows, I am not able to play so many weeks in a row like I did 10 years ago, eight years ago. So I have to do my schedule.
“The last two years that I played in Wimbledon, I felt close again. Even though I lost to Gilles Muller in 2017, I played great tennis there too.
“I was very close to being in the quarter-finals, and last year I was one point away from the final.
“So I will not play before Wimbledon, of course. I felt competitive in the last couple of years, so why do I need to change that?
“What gives me a better chance is being healthy more than playing a lot of matches before.”
Thiem has shown his class in recent months, particularly in Paris and at Indian Wells where he has shown he has all the credentials to be a future Grand Slam champion despite now losing two finals to Nadal at the French. Read More
