Rafael Nadal makes his long-awaited return to the court, in singles competition for the first time in 12 months, on Tuesday evening in Brisbane.
The Spaniard hasn’t played a competitive match since an injury-impacted second-round Australian Open loss last year, when he was ranked No.1 in the world.
He has since watched rival Novak Djokovic shoot towards history and the all-time grand slams won record – he needs one more to surpass Margaret Court, who won 24 – and to have any chance of contending at Melbourne Park this summer Nadal needs a healthy tune-up tournament.
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But the tennis gods wanted to make sure his return was a bit spicy, as after drawing a qualifier for his first-round Brisbane International clash, that was revealed to be Austria’s Dominic Thiem – the former world No.3 and 2020 US Open champion, who twice met Nadal in the French Open final, and defeated him in the 2020 Australian Open quarter-finals.
Thiem is also on the comeback trail after several years impacted by injury and the low ranking his issues handed him. He made his first tour-level final in Austria last year and defeated Stan Wawrinka at the Paris Masters.
Nadal’s match with Thiem gets underway not before 7:30pm AEDT.
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