Rafael Nadal has responded to claims made by Craig Tiley that the Spaniard will return at the 2024 Australian Open.
Earlier this week, Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley claimed that Rafael Nadal will make his comeback at the 2024 Australian Open. It's something that was expected by many, but the tournament director's confirmation made the news even more serious.
Yet, many suggested that Tiley was only trying to promote the tickets for the first Grand Slam of the season, by saying that the best of the best will come to Melbourne, including the 22-time Grand Slam champion.
Toni Nadal was the first one to suggest that Nadal might return at the 2024 Australian Open, which makes sense. There is no reason for him to return earlier because the smaller ones don't really mean much to him at this stage in his career.
His comeback will be solely around the Grand Slams, and the Australian Open is the first one. Well, Nadal himself now responded to the claim by Tiley as he neither confirmed nor denied it.
He simply said that he'll be glad to return to the event as he keeps working toward an eventual return to tennis. It's an interesting way of phrasing it, but it's not so surprising because most of these recovers are pretty secretive in nature.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence from the Australian Open… I am practising every day and working hard to come back asap."
Rafael Nadal has been working on his comeback for a very long time now. Videos from his practices have been coming out for weeks as he himself shared some of them.
They're mostly really short ones, so it's impossible to know what his real conditions are, but he wouldn't be teasing it without feeling pretty good about his potential return.
Ultimately time will tell best and we'll find out really soon. The Australian Open is only three months away and that will pass rather quickly. It will be officially one full year since he last stood on a court.