Nadal says strain will sideline him for two weeks

"I've torn my muscle for sure!" Rafa Nadal cried to his uncle and trainer Toni during his Australian Open quarterfinal defeat to David Ferrer in Melbourne on Wednesday. The world number one managed to stay out on court, but in the end couldn't compete with what the number seven seed was throwing at him and had to say goodbye to his first Grand Slam event of 2011.

On Sunday Nadal confirmed he had suffered a two-centimeter thigh-muscle tear and would be out for at least two weeks. "I knew that it wasn't very serious, but a strain is a strain," he told Mallorca's Ultima Hora Radio. "I tried to keep going until the end and couldn't perform at the level David was demanding from me. You see it a lot on TV when it happens to soccer players, only there was no one on the bench who could substitute me."

After a sensational 2010, 2011 has not started as expected for Nadal. "I trained very well in December. I fell ill in Doha, I arrived very well in Abu Dhabi and then in Australia I was sweating too much. And when it seemed I had got over everything, after the match against [Marin] Cilic, this strain happened," he said.

Now he needs to rest and plan ahead. "The aim is to once again recover the level of tennis I had before the injury," he said. "My return will depend on my progress, but the logical thing is to stop for two weeks. I have these days scheduled to do recovery work."