Rafael Nadal suffered from mental health issues during his career, claims ex colleague

Former World No. 7 Mardy Fish recently suggested that Rafael Nadal and several other top players from the past likely took sabbaticals from the ATP Tour to recharge their batteries. The American had disclosed his own mental health struggles in his 2021 docuseries Untold: Breaking Point.

Nadal dominated men's tennis for nearly two decades, winning 22 Grand Slam tournaments and 98 overall singles titles. That said, the Spaniard also spent a significant amount of time off the men's circuit due to injuries, including long layoffs in 2016, 2021, and 2023.

Against that background, former ATP pro Mardy Fish nudged forward a rather interesting question during his appearance on Andy Roddick's podcast, Served with Andy Roddick — Did Rafael Nadal's injury layoffs also include breaks for his mental well-being? To illustrate his point, the 43-year-old also referenced the likes of Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Murray, who also suffered from their fair share of long breaks from tennis.

"I sort of think back to a lot of times when there's a lot of players who were off the tour for a couple of months or a year, and I would sort of go back and think like, 'Man, Rafa took a lot of time off,'" Mardy Fish said on Andy Roddick's podcast (from 46:00 onwards). "I remember like Jurgen Melzer took a lot of time off at one stage, Lleyton Hewitt took a lot of time off, Andy Murray... I wonder if, like, I know they're saying that it's an injury or something like that. But I wonder how much of that is mental health."

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Rafael Nadal: "I went to a psychologist twice in my life"

Last February, Rafael Nadal disclosed to the media that he encouraged mental health discourse while also revealing that he had seen a psychologist twice in his life. The Spaniard also shut down the taboo surrounding the topic by making an interesting comparison.

"I have never had any problem talking about it, I went to a psychologist twice in my life, at two different stages in my life for two different problems I had," Nadal told the Objective last year. "If you have pain in your leg, you go to the doctor. Maybe it has been a more taboo subject, but I don't perceive it this way, I perceive it as something normal and natural , it is just another part of the body and I would say the most important."

The former World No. 1 eventually retired at the Davis Cup Finals last November after Spain crashed out in the quarterfinals to the Netherlands.