Spain will pass as one of the countries to miss a major athlete on their national line-up as tennis superstar Rafa Nadal withdrew from the London Olympic Games team for Spain due to a persistent knee problem on Thursday.
Nadal who has won the French Open title a record seven times, crashed out in the second round at Wimbledon in a big upset against lowly ranked Czech Lukas Rosol.
Earlier this month, he pulled out of a charity match against Novak Djokovic at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium saying he was suffering from tendinitis and needed to rest.
Four years ago in Beijing the Spaniard brushed aside other contenders to settle in for the biggest prize in his sport the gold medal but will be missed terribly in London as he won’t be able to defend his title and also he was to be the flag-bearer for Spain at the opening ceremony, an honour bestowed on him.
However, the Spanish tennis federation has announced that he is to be replaced by Feliciano Lopez in the singles and the doubles with Marcel Granollers but as for his replacement on who to bear the flag the Spanish Olympic Committee has not concluded.
Nadal had hoped to return to Wimbledon this month to defend his Olympic title and his withdrawal echoes his plight of 2009 when a similar knee problem meant he had to withdraw from the grass court grand slam, a year after winning it for the first time in an epic final against Roger Federer.
The Spaniard said sadly that he is not a good condition to go into competition and admitted that this is one of his saddest moments in the game.
Now rated number three in the world, he confessed that he wants to be unselfish about the whole issue because ahead of him is his country and national team so he is placing the Spanish sport into a better position in that he should allow some fitter in term of preparedness to take his place because Spain will stand a better chance with that.
