Nadal won Roland Garros for the 14th time with a numb foot

Rafael Nadal, champion for the 14th time of the Paris Grand Slam, faced Casper Ruud with a numb left foot in this Sunday’s final (5).

“I had my doctor here with me. We played without feeling my foot, with a nerve injection, so my foot was numb. That’s why I was able to play,” he told Eurosport after the match.

The Spanish tennis player also recalled that he was out of training for a month and that, in addition to the foot injury, he suffered a rib fracture.

The pain in the Spanish tennis player’s left foot is due to Müller-Weiss syndrome, a rare degenerative disease that affects one of the bones in the central part of the foot. Nadal was diagnosed in 2005.

“This bone undergoes significant stress and, for unknown reasons, loses its vascularity and becomes necrotic,” Denis Mainard, president of the French Foot Surgery Association, told AFP.

In the most severe cases, “the bone will disintegrate, may fragment and, in the end, evolve into osteoarthritis with reduced plantar arch”, he says.

Müller-Weiss syndrome has five stages: the first does not reveal symptoms, the last is osteoarthritis.

The causes are unknown. “Of the two authors who initially described it, Müller believed it to be of traumatic origin, Weiss, vascular. At the moment, the origin is considered to be vascular”, says Mainard.

Some factors can increase the risk of onset: excess weight, flat feet and fatigue fracture. Diagnosis is often difficult in the early stages because symptoms develop silently.

In addition to rest, the use of orthopedic insoles can reduce pain, but when they are intense, there is no other option but anti-inflammatories or infiltrations.

For patients who cannot stand the pain and cannot walk, surgical intervention is required to block the two joints that surround the navicular bone. “In the event that the navicular bone disintegrates, a bone transplant is also necessary to restore the length of the medial arch of the foot,” says Mainard.

“Practicing high-level sports after such an operation seems difficult to me”, he concludes.

At Roland Garros, Nadal said that competing in the French Open again, at 36, means a lot to him. “I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I will keep fighting,” he said.

“I looked for a level I thought I didn’t have,” said Nadal after his quarter-final triumph over rival Novak Djokovic. A triumph that, even with his almost unbelievable French Open record, was considered unlikely by many.

Then world ranking leader and title defender, fellow veteran Djokovic, 35, had reached the quarterfinals without having lost a set. Due to chronic foot pain, Nadal arrived in Paris showing signs that the competition could be his last.

“I would accept losing the final in exchange for a new foot,” he said, half joking, half serious, before the title match.

With at least a pair of titles in each of the other three championships in the Grand Slam series — two at the Australian Open, four at the US Open and two at the traditional Wimbledon Tournament — Nadal has reached 22 Major circuit cups. No one has won as much, having left behind Djokovic and Swiss Roger Federer, 20 victories each.