Moxie
Multiple Major Winner
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- Apr 14, 2013
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He was definitely wincing, but by all accounts, fractured ribs are painful, in any case. NYTimes ran a piece today, saying that there are ways to make bones knit faster, or try to. This is not especially optimistic, from the Times article:What I don’t like is that when the trainer came on court during the final he really applied a lot of physical force and pressure on Nadal and actually could have made things worse. He treated it like some muscle ache but he was pushing so hard that he could have made the fracture worse.
"But this is a new type of injury for Nadal, one that could recur and, according to the retired orthopedic surgeon Bill Mallon, could require longer than four to six weeks to heal. “You can’t put your rib in a cast,” Mallon said.
Treatment options are limited, though some patients use bone stimulator devices, which use electrical or ultrasonic impulses to try to speed healing, said Nicholas DiNubile, an American orthopedic surgeon. Nadal has never played in the French Open without competing in a preliminary event on clay. But it could be a race against the clock to compete in early May in the Madrid Open or Italian Open."
That said, I don't know why a stress fracture of the rib should necessarily recur. There are treatments, per above, to speed healing. And, while they mention he's never played RG w/o playing a warm-up, he DID win it in 2020 after only having played 3? matches in Rome, without dropping a set at the French, under terrible conditions, and without having played anywhere since before Covid, some 7 months. So, with a great start to the year, when finally back on clay competitively, why shouldn't it be Rafa again to hoist the Coupe de Mousquetaires?
