DANIELLA MATAR
Associated Press
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) — Rafael Nadal will have season-ending appendicitis surgery next month, ruling him out of the upcoming Paris Masters and the ATP finals in London.
Nadal announced the decision Friday after losing to 17-year-old Borna Coric in a sub-par performance in the quarterfinals of the Swiss Indoors in Basel. He said he made the decision last week to undergo surgery on Nov. 3, and that his 2014 season is over.
“It’s the day to say goodbye to the season,” Nadal said. “It’s been a very hard year for me, mentally and physically. I’m not going to play Paris and London, I’m not competitive enough for that. I need to do the surgery for my appendix and I need to work on my back.
“I need five weeks of rest and I want to have one month to try to work as much as I can to be ready for 2015. The only way to work on being fit is to be healthy. I need to fix all the things in my body first.”
Paris Masters organizers had earlier said Nadal pulled out of the tournament next week for “personal reasons.”
The Spaniard needed treatment for appendicitis this month in Shanghai. In Basel, he was playing only his third tournament since Wimbledon, when a wrist injury curtailed his schedule.
U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic and Ernests Gulbis also withdrew from the Paris Masters. Cilic has a right-arm injury and Gulbis a right-shoulder injury.
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