Rafael Nadal's Return Date Revealed, Will He Hold Unto It…

Rafael Nadal’s Return Date Revealed, Will He Hold Unto It…
Nov 18, 2023

Spanish tennis great Rafael Nadal has been away from action for nearly all of
2023 with a hip injury that needed surgery. He last played in the Australian
Open in January, which is where Nadal picked up the injury

Rafael Nadal is sure he’ll
be returning to competition after missing nearly all of 2023 with ahip injury

that required surgery. And now he says he’ll be revealing his comeback plans
soon. (Tennis News

Nadal wrote Thursday on social media: “I confirmed yesterday I’ll be back” and
punctuated that message with a smiling emoji.

“Stay tuned,” he continued in the Instagram post, which included a photograph
of him about to hit a backhand. He said that in the coming days he will “decide
and announce with my team when and where” everyone can expect to see him in
action.

Next season begins in late December, with the year’s first major tournament,
theAustralian Open ,
scheduled to begin main-draw matches on January 14.

“For the world of tennis, no doubt that it’s amazing news that he’ll be back,”
Novak Djokovic said at the
ATP Finals in Turin, Italy.

Nadal, whose 22 Grand Slam singles titles rank second to Djokovic’s 24 for the
most among men, has not played on tour since last January, when he hurt his hip
flexor during a loss to Mackenzie McDonald in the second round of the
Australian Open.

In May, a little more than a week before the start of his beloved French Open,
Nadal announced that he would miss the tournament he’s won a record 14 times
and wasn’t exactly sure when he might return to play.

He said then he hoped to compete in 2024, which he expected to be his final
season.

“You never know how things will turn out,” Nadal said at a news conference at
the time, “but my intention is that next year will be my last year.”

He wound up having arthroscopic surgery in June in Barcelona.

Dating to the end of 2022, the 37-year-old Spanish left-hander has lost seven
of his past nine matches, including going 1-3 this season.

With Roger Federer , who won
20 majors, having announced his retirement in 2022, and Nadal missing much of
this year, Djokovic was the only member of the so-called Big Three of men’s
tennis who was active throughout 2023 — and the 36-year-old from Serbia was
dominant, particularly at the Grand Slam tournaments. He won the Australian
Open, French Open and US Open and reached the final at Wimbledon.

“I think it would be nice for the sport to have at least one more match
between Nadal and me. That’s the biggest rivalry in terms of the amount of
matches played that this sport ever had. Hopefully that can happen,” Djokovic
said.

“He’s a big warrior. He’s somebody that really never gives up. With all the
injuries that he had, keeps going. That’s definitely something that you have to
respect and admire about him and his spirit.”