Rafael Nadal is coming back to tennis at the 2024 Brisbane International, and while many thought his first-round match may be a walk in the park, it will be far from the truth.
Without two weeks, it’s been a year since the Spaniard stood on the tennis court in an official tennis match. His loss to Mackenzie McDonald at the 2023 Australian Open was his last match, which halted his professional career for quite some time due to an injury sustained that needed to be surgically addressed.
But now, the 22-time Grand Slam champion is back, and he will be looking to get some important match practice ahead of the 2024 Australian Open, even though he dismissed talks about winning the title in Melbourne.
After the draw for the 2024 Brisbane International was released, most of the players got to know their opponents, but not Nadal, as he faced another wait to find out who would be his first opponent of the new season.
The reason for that was quite simple, as Nadal was drawn against one of the qualifiers at the tournament. His opponent could have been anyone, but he possibly drew the most challenging player of all of the qualifiers.
Dominic Thiem is also trying to return to his best tennis, and therefore the Austrian is not currently among the highest-ranked players on the ATP Tour and as a result, he had to play qualifying in Brisbane.
He succeeded in his matches, and it is the Austrian who will take on Nadal in his first match back at the Brisbane International, a match that fans saw already in two Grand Slam finals.
But before heading onto the singles court, Nadal will begin the tournament in doubles, as he wants to get some match practice, teaming up with Marc Lopez against Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson.
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