Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley is under fire after claiming that Rafael Nadal will play at the 2024 Australian Open.
For the longest time, we've assumed that Rafael Nadal will make a return at the 2024 Australian Open. It would be exactly one year after he injured himself at the same event, and it wasn't just pure speculation.
His own uncle came out months ago admitting that Nadal is targeting a return at the Australian Open. Still, the way he phrased it wasn't confirmation that he was truly going to return at the event, but Craig Tiley claimed so in an interview recently.
He basically confirmed that Nadal would play at the event, which both Nadal and his team quickly denied. It was a strange situation as tournament directors generally don't announce such things without having confirmation from players, and it seems like there was none from Nadal and his team.
Directors do tend to announce these things, so it's not that uncommon, but this sequence was a bit strange.
Tennis fans were particularly stunned by the development especially since Nadal confirmed a few times since then that it's not a certainty that he'll play in Melbourne. The announcement actually caught him by surprise.
Some fans even went out to call out Tiley for trying to use Nadal to drive ticket sales, which might be a stretch, but you could certainly make an argument that it looks that way. Check out some fan reactions below.
Jesus Christ Craig Tiley. What a clown and so unprofessional.
A certain tournament director Down Under should be happy Rafa‘s such a relaxed and too nice for this world guy.
Anything else needed to call out this man’s bluff? He announces players just to sell tickets, wake up.
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