Rafael Nadal Says He Played with 'No Feeling' in Foot En Route to French Open Title

Rafael Nadal overcame quite the disadvantage en route to his 14th French Open title.

Following his straight-set victory over Casper Ruud in Sunday's final, Nadal told Eurosport he "played with no feeling on the foot" after he got an injection to address his lingering foot injury.

In May with the French Open on the horizon, the Spaniard acknowledged he was suffering from "a chronic injury which has no treatment." That raised obvious questions over his quest for yet another triumph at Roland Garros.

Then came the reveal of the draw, which laid out Nadal's arduous road to the final. He was drawn in the same quarter as Novak Djokovic and had a likely semifinal matchup with Alexander Zverev.

The 2022 French Open might go down as Nadal's most impressive win at the tournament. He survived a five-setter against Felix Auger-Aliassime before taking Djokovic down in four sets. He was up a set on Zverev when the German had to retire because of a foot injury.

Once Nadal got to the final, it was a fait accompli.

Beyond just him fighting through the injury, Sunday's match felt more meaningful because the end might be on the horizon for Nadal. While the 36-year-old hasn't officially announced his retirement, he has been a bit cryptic of late:

Tennis is an unforgiving sport, one that often forces stars into retirement far earlier than Nadal—whenever he calls it quits.

By his own admission, there's nothing the southpaw can do to fully address his foot injury, and painkilling injections that leave his foot numb aren't a solution on which he can continually rely. At a certain point, he'll presumably want to walk away in order to preserve his health the best he can.

In the event Nadal doesn't make the trip to Paris in 2023, he will have had quite the coda to his legendary run at Roland Garros.