Tennis: Nadal unsure on Davis Cup return

MANACOR: Rafa Nadal said he must fully recover from a nagging knee problem known as Hoffa’s syndrome before returning to competition and was a doubt for next month’s Davis Cup semi-final against the US. The world number three has not played since suffering a shock second-round Wimbledon defeat by lowly-ranked Czech Lukas Rosol in June. He missed the Olympic Games and also withdrew from the US Open. “The important thing is to recover well and come back when my knee is a hundred per cent perfect,” said Nadal. “We’ll see if I will be ready for Gijon, for the Davis Cup. My goal, my dream is to be there if the captain has confidence in me, but it always depends on the captain and the knee. After Roland Garros, the injury got worse and it was impossible to continue. The important thing is to recover as fast as possible.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2012.