What injury forced Rafael Nadal to miss the 2023 French Open?

Rafael Nadal missed the 2023 French Open because of a hip injury.

The injury had first seriously affected him during his second-round match against Mackenzie McDonald at the 2023 Australian Open. Nadal played through the problem but was visibly hampered, then withdrew from Indian Wells and Miami while attempting to recover. He did not play another tournament during the 2023 season.

Nadal was the reigning French Open champion and had won the tournament a record 14 times, so his absence was one of the defining stories of the event. It also ended his run of appearing at every French Open since his debut in 2005. The injury is sometimes described more specifically as a left hip or psoas injury, but “hip injury” is the fair canonical answer to this question.