Rafa Nadal will miss the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London next month after the ailing Spaniard called time on his season yesterday.

The former world number one has been treating appendicitis with antibiotics and has decided to bring forward surgery to Nov. 3.

“I’m not going to play Paris (Masters next week) and London. I’m not competitive enough,” Nadal told a news conference after going out in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoor event in Basel.

He said he hoped to return at the Qatar Open in January. The London season-ender begins on Nov. 9.

The 28-year-old’s absence is a big blow to the ATP Tour’s blue riband event although on the evidence of his defeat by Croatian teenager Borna Coric yesterday, he is clearly in no fit shape to compete.

Against the 17-year-old Coric his movement looked laboured and his shots rusty as he went down 6-2 7-6.

Nadal had already qualified for the Tour Finals, along with Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Stanislas Wawrinka and Marin Cilic.

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