Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal pulls out of semi-final against Nick Kyrgios

Nadal's tournament has come to an end

Rafael Nadal has pulled out of Wimbledon due to an abdominal injury and will not play the semi-final against Australian Nick Kyrgios. The Spaniard secured a hard-fought five-set victory over Taylor Fritz in his quarter-final tie, despite struggling with an abdominal issue. After the game, he said that he would seek medical advice before deciding whether to take on Kyrgios in the semi-finals on Friday. The second seed was a doubt for Wimbledon in general because of a chronic foot condition, and the 36-year-old required strapping on his abdomen during his fourth-round match.  Nadal has since confirmed that, due to the tear in his abdominal muscle, he would not be able to be competitive over two matches. Following a light practice for 45 minutes on site at 1:30pm today, the 22-times grand slam champion informed All England Club officials later in the afternoon that he will not be fit enough to play on Centre Court for his semi-final tie. The official Wimbledon account tweeted: "We're sad to see it end this way, @RafaelNadal... Thank you for another year of unforgettable moments at The Championships". https://twitter.com/Wimbledon/status/1545111323926740992

Speaking about his decision to withdraw, Nadal said: "Unfortunately, as you can imagine if I am here, I have to pull out from the tournament, no? As everybody saw yesterday, I have been suffering with the pain in abdominal. I know something was not okay there, as yesterday I said.

"Yeah, that's confirmed. I have a tear in the muscle in the abdominal. The communication is too late because even like that I was thinking during the whole day about the decision to make. "But I think it's, yeah, I think it's don't make sense to go. Even if I tried lot of times during my career to keep going under very tough circumstances, in that one I think it's obvious that if I keep going, the injury going to be worst and worst. "That's the thing that I can say now. Feel very sad to say that."

As a result, Kyrgios will play Novak Djokovic or Cameron Norrie in Sunday's final.

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