Hopefully he'll be 100% fit by then, not returning sooner than he should.

Enjoy your holiday Rafa!

thailand is a nice place to holiday......nice food too,i know rafa enjoys sea food.......hell have a ball der!!!

vamos!!!!!!!!!

This is great news! I hope Rafa has some time for a little r&r and then back to business. I would think that this means his abdominal injury is not serious. As long as Rafa is healthy and strong again, I will be thrilled to see him playing. The more he plays, the sooner he can get back to peak form. He has done so well in his comeback and I wish him more of the same.

YAY RAFA!!!

I paid $90 for a seat to the finals. He better be in it. hehehe

Don't count on Nadal playing in Thailand.

It does seem a bit soon for him to be working those abs. Hope he has a nice holiday.

Rickey,

I am curious as to why you said we shouldn't count on Rafa playing in Thailand. I know that Rafa and his team are being tight-lipped about the abdomina injury, but I would have thought that he would have announced his withdrawal if he would be unable to play.

It's this endless waiting to find out what is really going on that drives me crazy. Of course I want Rafa to be healthy so that he can play his very best. If he really is not okay, then I would hope he will not play in Thailand. Maybe I was guilty of getting ahead of myself before I know the facts.

I am intrigued by the original thread rather than your later post, Ricky - I think it was the Times of London that said Rafa was taking a month out to let the abdominal injury heal fully. [Not Rafa's terrific blog for that paper, but one of their post-Open wraps.]

I really wish Rafa would pull out of Thailand.He's got to start thinking about his health.
It's just to soon(has his abs healed enough?)...he probably will play Bangkok..but Thailand...
Hopefully he's just waiting to pull out.

^^ what i meant was Rafa will probably play beijing...but Thailand...

I certainly want Rafa to take all the time he needs to get healthy. It is true that we originally were told that Rafa would need a month off to fully recover. I guess it's all the conflicting stories that have me concerned. I just wish I knew the real facts about the nature of Rafa's abdominal injury. Some abdominal injuries can take a while to heal, so I do have some concern. It's just being in the dark right now that creates anxiety for me.

ricky i hope you're right - if his abs aren't totally healed.

native we're all anxious but i trust rafa and his team tho he did make some mistakes with scheduling this yr. ricky keep us posted pls!!!

I think the profile of the tournament relies on Rafa being there, he probably doesn't want to let them down so he is going ahead with it. Someone posted pictures of his lavish hotel suite on his website, complete with personal butler and personalised towels and bath robe. They are really pampering him because they want him to be there, but I do hope he'll only play if he is fit to do so. Shanghai is far more important.

These tournaments rely so much on the big names being there. I was in Dubai in February for their tourney, and I know how devasted they were when Rafa and Roger pulled out.

I don't take too much notice of what journalists say, Rafa has always said he would play Thailand even after the USO. It's hard for the top players to reduce their schedule because so much pressure is put on them by the organisers because they are the cash cows, they sell the tickets with their names in the draw. I understand that Rafa did not want to play Rotterdam, but there was so much pressure put on him with Richard Kreicheck flying out to Spain to plead with him, and sending a private jet to fly Rafa to Holland.

homos,

Thanks for the reassurance. I worry so much about Rafa. Yes, I remember all too well the scheduling mistakes that cost Rafa so dearly this year. I do not want to see that happen again.

I just want what is best for Rafa.

carrie,

You provided some good information about the kind of pressure the players must deal with when they commit to playing tournaments. I did happen to see the pictures showing the beautiful hotel suite, personal butler and monogrammed bathrobe and towels. They certainly are rolling out the red carpet for our Rafa.

I was quite surprised to hear about what happened with Rotterdam. I wasn't aware that Rafa didn't want to play Rotterdam, but was pressured by that guy. I know that I did not want him to play there. I was extremely concerned about the pounding his body took in that brutal semifinal match with Verdasco and then another five setter with Fed. I knew he was having problems with his quadricep muscle in his right leg after the AO. I always worry about Rafa's knees and I did not want this injury to develop into something more serious. I just had a bad feeling that I couldn't shake when I heard he would play Rotterdam.

Thanks for revealing some of the forces at work that make it so hard for a player, especially someone like Rafa, to back out of a tournament. I just hope he and his team make the right decision this time.

According to a Danish newspaper he's pulled out of Thailand

can he keep the personalised towels?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/sep/21/rafael-nadal-thailand-open

yeah, rafa's out. quite relieved personally. it's not worth him getting injured for

Maybe they should raffle the towels off to Rafa's fans. I can just imagine a Rafael Nadal Towel in my bathroom!

It's not fair to any player to presurise them into playing when they are not fully fit, look what happened in Rotterdam when he played Murray, barely able to move. I would like him to be at 100% fit in Shanghai, and Beijing. If he doesn't recover fully it will just go on and on. He had to push himself to play the USO, because there was a lot at stake, and he did very well considering.

VAMOS RAFA!

carrie: Murray has been pressurised to play Davis Cup with a wrist injury, it seems to be happening all over the place and is quite wrong. Tennis has become big, big, business like other sports.

deuce, I agree. They made Murray feel obliged to play, unlucky for him as he is the only one they've got. In general, tennis players suffer from the money grabbing that all sports suffer from because it is an individual sport. With team sport, it doesn't matter if a player is injured, the team can still play because they have more people to turn to. There is only one Rafael Nadal, one Roger Federer, one Andy Murray, on Djokovic and so on.