Nadal to return in Brisbane’s Australian Open warm-up
Rafael Nadal has announced he will make his eagerly awaited tennis comeback at the Brisbane International in January after almost a year’s absence.
The Spanish great declared the news on Friday on social media that he intends to make his return at the Australian Open warm-up event.
The 37-year-old hasn’t played a competitive match since getting knocked out in the second round of this year’s Australian Open in Melbourne against American Mackenzie McDonald when struggling with a hip flexor problem.
“Hello everyone. After a year away from competition it’s time to come back,” Nadal said in a video message on X on Friday.
“I will be in Brisbane the first week of January. I’ll see you there.”
The appearance could be the start of what will effectively be a grand farewell tour for the 22-time grand slam singles winner, whose ranking has plummeted to 663 after his 18-year stay in the top 10 ended in March.
Nadal says he plans to play the French Open and represent his country at the Paris Olympics next year before retiring at the end of his 23rd season on tour.
It’s been a long, hard fight for the battle-scarred, veteran champion to get back to action after he had initially been expected just to miss eight weeks of action after Melbourne, but ended up undergoing surgery on the hip in June.
Nadal missed the French Open, the tournament he’s won a record 14 times, and had announced at the time: “You never know how things will turn out, but my intention is that next year will be my last year.”
Last month, Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley had confirmed Nadal, twice a winner of the event, would be back at Melbourne for the season’s first grand slam.
But clearly, the Brisbane event that runs between December 31 and January 7 will be the key test of whether Nadal is ready to shoot for a hat-trick of Open titles at Melbourne Park in the January 14 to 28 slam.
It will also put even more of a spotlight on the Brisbane International tune-up, which is returning after a three-year absence brought on initially by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event had already enjoyed a coup by being able to announce that former world No.1 Naomi Osaka was to make her comeback there following the birth of her first child in July.
AAP
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