{"id":337761,"date":"2023-10-10T21:02:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T21:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=337761"},"modified":"2023-10-10T22:00:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T22:00:52","slug":"nadals-major-australian-open-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=337761","title":{"rendered":"Nadal's major Australian Open announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\ufeffwo-time Australian Open<\/a> champion Rafael Nadal<\/a> will return to Melbourne Park in January in the hope of adding to his bulging trophy cabinet.<\/p>\n

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley revealed to Nine's Today<\/em> on Wednesday that the 22-time grand slam winner will make his injury comeback at the Aussie major.<\/p>\n

Nadal won the event in 2022 when overcoming injury to beat Daniil Medvedev<\/a> in one of the great Australian Open finals.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Aussie golf legend Scott's major announcement\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Rabbitohs legend 'improving slightly' after tragedy\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Bizarre 'refusal' behind push to oust Tigers boss\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

"The return of some of the greats, and those champions who have been off for a couple of years," Tiley began in response to a question about Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n

"We can reveal exclusively here that Rafa will be back.<\/p>\n

\"Rafael<\/p>\n

"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.<\/p>\n

"And we know Nick's (Kyrgios) been in training so we expect to see him back.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

Nadal's triumph in Melbourne in 2022 was epic, but he has since struggled with multiple injuries.<\/p>\n

After winning Roland-Garros that same year he was forced to withdraw from his Wimbledon match against Kyrgios, and has rarely been seen on the court since.<\/p>\n

He only made it to the second round of this year's Australian Open before being bundled out by American challenger MacKenzie McDonald.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Tennis<\/p>\n

"Can't say that I am not destroyed mentally at this time, because I will be lying. It's hard for me," Nadal said after that loss.<\/p>\n

He held a press conference\ufeff ahead of Roland-Garros where many thought he may announce his retirement, but it was only to withdraw from his favourite slam.<\/p>\n

He has since suggested 2024 will be his final season on tour.<\/p>\n

\ufeffNadal is 37 years old and has 22 slams to his name, second only behind long-time rival Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T\ufeffwo-time Australian Open champion Rafael Nadal will return to Melbourne Park in January in the hope of adding to his bulging trophy cabinet. Tennis Australia […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337766,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337761\/revisions\/337766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/337763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}