Paris (AFP) – Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal, the winner this Sunday of his 14th Roland Garros, declared at a press conference that "in the current circumstances, I cannot and do not want to continue playing" due to the pain he has suffered for years in his foot left.

"I have been able to compete this fortnight because my doctor has given me anaesthetic injections into the nerves to numb my foot, but it is a risk. In the current conditions, I cannot and do not want to continue playing until a solution is found."

"What I have in my foot has not worsened, but when you play with a part of your body, other physical problems can arise, and that is a risk that I do not want to take," he added in the press conference after the final that won the Norwegian Casper Ruud 6-3, 6-3 and 6-0.

"It was the only way I could compete here, a risk I wanted to take to play here, but not a risk I want to take in the future," he added in the first part of the press conference.

He has said on several occasions during the Paris fortnight, Nadal recalled: "Playing tennis is one of my priorities, but it is not above being happy in my life."

"If I don't feel competitive, I'm not happy; it's not a matter of winning more titles, just being able to do what I like, which is to play tennis," Nadal added.

Nadal did not rule out playing at Wimbledon, depending on the conditions regarding his following goals on the court. "I will be there if my body allows it. Wimbledon is a priority; the Grand Slams are a priority. Playing it with anti-inflammatories, yes, with anaesthesia injections no."

Nadal revealed that next week he would try a new treatment to solve the foot problem, the Müller-Weiss syndrome that he has suffered from in a foot bone for years and that causes severe chronic pain.

"It is an intervention in the two nerves that have gone well for me and have taken away the pain, which consists of injections with pulsed radiofrequency that could help me reduce the sensation in the foot," he explained in Spanish.

The objective is to repeat "the sensation that I have now played, not in such an exaggerated way because now I have him completely asleep, but to disinhibit the nerve, to remove that sensation of pain that is so permanent."

So that "through this treatment, leave the nerve touched, half asleep and have that more permanent sensation, which leaves my foot with less sensitivity, but the goal is to reduce the pain a lot".

If this treatment does not work, Nadal admitted that "it will be time to approach life, but I reserve that for myself, see if it compensates or stops making sense."