Rumours swirl surrounding Rafael Nadal's Monte-Carlo Masters comeback suffering back injury setback

Rafael Nadal is currently set to return to the ATP Tour next week at the Monte-Carlo Masters after not playing since January but rumours have swirled that he in fact is still struggling with his back injury still that took him out of Indian Wells.

Aside from Brisbane International, Nadal has only played at the Netflix Slam where he was struggling with his serve due to this problem and the Spaniard being rumoured to withdraw is mainly due to that.

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He has been pictured playing this week and hitting the ball with a great degree of ferocity. But there is no footage of serving which does lead to questioning and rumour that he won't play the first big tournament of the clay court season.

It would be a huge disappointment for Nadal, but his clear focus will obviously be the Madrid Open, Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell and also Roland Garros as his two home tournaments and then the latter being his big aim so it wouldn't technically be the end of the world to see him withdraw from the Monte-Carlo Masters.

But as the withdrawals stack up so does the doubt that he will make the landmark tournaments that are on his list over the next month especially if he is still struggling with his back which has plagued him during his attempted comebacks this season.