Nadal may call an early end to the season

The Spanish ace Rafael Nadal hinted about ending the season early after suffering a defeat to Serbian star Viktor Troicki at the Shanghai Masters. Nadal was beaten 6-3 7-6 (7-3) by the Serb in an hour and 34 minutes on Wednesday.

“I don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. It's something that I need to think about,” Nadal said after the match.

"I cannot say now what I'm going to do during the next month. I'm not sure about my calendar. I'm not sure about the things that I need to do to try to be 100 percent ready for next year."

The last events of the season include the Swiss Indoors, the Paris Masters and the ATP World Tour Finals in London.

“Sometimes keeping (on) competing is not the solution. Sometimes the solution is to practice and stop and have a process of training. And maybe that's an opportunity to it,” added the Spaniard.

"I'm not sure about that. Maybe I'm going to play in Basel in two weeks. So it's not the day and not the moment to analyze all these kind of things."

Once considered as the clay-court king, Nadal, who has 9 Roland Garros titles under his belt, has been on a downward slope since his French Open win in 2014, after which he hasn’t won any major titles.