Rafael Nadal has been sidelined by a wrist injury over the past two months, but fans of the Spanish tennis superstar will likely see him action again on Thursday.
According to a report on Sports Illustrated's FanSided, Nadal, who has not seen action since losing to Nick Kyrgios in the fourth round of the 2014 Wimbledon, will go up against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Kazakhstan.
And if everything goes well for Nadal, the 28-year-old is expected to participate in all of the remaining big tournaments this year, including the Tokyo 500 next week.
"Nadal is an incredible athlete and his base level of fitness will still allow him to compete," FanSided noted. "If his return goes smoothly, he will finish the Asia Swing with the Shanghai Masters 100 and then head to Europe. The Basel 500 tournament has him down on their entry list, although he may take the pressure off himself by sitting that one out."
Barring any major setback, Nadal's participation in the Paris Masters 1000 is also set in stone as he is considering the tournament as his final warm up for the ATP World Tour Finals later this year.
Nadal was also scheduled to participate in the International Premier Tennis League in November, but IPTL organizers have already announced that Nadal won't play in the event and was replaced by Roger Federer.
"You know, Rafael has been hurt since Wimbledon he has not played any tennis. So obviously there was a risk there, and you know in the format we have, there is something, you know, neither party wanted to kind of take a chance with," IPTL founder Mahesh Bhupathi said in a statement. "When you are talking of profile as high as Rafael Nadal, there was probably only one name that could have helped ease the pain and for us fortunately Roger was available."
Nadal, who has dropped to No. 2 in the ATP world rankings behind Novak Djokovic, was supposed to lead the "Indian Aces" team in the IPTL where he will team up with Pete Sampras, Gael Monfils, Ana Ivanovic, Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna and Fabrice Santoro in the event.
The inaugural edition of the IPTL will start on Nov. 28 and will run until Dec. 13 in the Philippines, Singapore, UAE and India.
© 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
