Craig Tiley, the director of the
Australian Open, has announced on Aussie television the news we were all waiting for: Rafa Nadal will be present and will play the first Grand Slam of the 2024 season that will start next January 14.
"The return of some of the greats, and those champions who have been off for a couple of years," Tiley told Nine.
"We can reveal exclusively here that Rafa will be back. He's been off for most of the year, and in talking to him over the last few days he confirmed he will be back, which we're really excited about. That's awesome.
Tiley, incidentally, also confirmed the return of Nick Kyrgios to the Australian tournament.
It will be a year since Nadal's injury problems began at the Australian Open where he lost to Mackenzie McDonald. After failing to recover from his physical problems he had to undergo hip surgery on June 2 and until recently we have not been able to see him back training either.
These trainings were on hard court despite the fact that some experts said that Rafa was going to return to the courts directly to face the clay court season, thus skipping Australia. But after Tiley's confirmation, that is false.