Paris Masters boss addresses Rafael Nadal ‘invitation’ rumour ahead of star’s retirement | Tennis | Sport
The Paris Masters tournament director has confronted speculation that Rafael Nadal “requested” an invitation to next week’s event.
The Spaniard recently announced his retirement and will end his career at next month’s Davis Cup Finals.
Nadal has not played a regular ATP Tour event since the Bastad Open in July and Cedric Pioline addressed whether the 22-time Major winner planned to turn up to the last Masters 1000 of the year.
Paris has been one of the most special places in Nadal’s career. The 38-year-old has 14 French Open titles and he was included in the opening ceremony for this year’s Olympic Games as one of the torchbearers despite being Spanish.
The former world No. 1 has already competed in the French capital twice this year. But the Paris Masters tournament director has now confirmed that he won’t return as a professional player.
Nadal is gearing up to retire at next month’s Davis Cup Finals, where he hopes to be ready to play for Spain in the singles. Next week’s tournament in Paris-Bercy serves as his last opportunity to get some competitive matches under his belt.
With his ranking now down at No. 151, he would’ve needed a wildcard to enter the main draw but they all went to French players. But Pioline says Nadal never requested to compete in Bercy.
“It is true that for him it was a real option to come to Paris to play matches, which is logical given that the Davis Cup will be his last appointment, But no, he has not made any request,” the tournament boss told Eurosport.
Pioline harbours no hard feelings towards Nadal for skipping his tournament ahead of his retirement. Instead, he agrees with the Spaniard’s decision to retire at the Davis Cup Finals.
He added: “Choosing this moment, a Davis Cup in Spain with the possibility of experiencing it with all his teammates, his family, his friends, makes sense and I think it suits him well.”
It’s no surprise Nadal wasn’t too keen on entering the Paris Masters one final time. The former world No. 1 has played the tournament just once in the last four years.
He never had much success at the indoor hard-court event compared to other tournaments, reaching one final on his first appearance back in 2007.
Nadal did get to test himself against two of the world’s best on an indoor hard court at the recent Six Kings Slam. Although it was only an exhibition, he played two matches against Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
He lost both but showed that he could still hold his own in the second set of his third-place playoff against Djokovic as he broke when his long-time rival was serving for the match. Nadal forced a tiebreak but went down 6-2 7-6(5).
