As everyone knows by now, Rafa Nadal will reappear at the beginning of January at the Brisbane tournament. The champion of 22 Grand Slam titles returned to the circuit after nearly a year in dry dock due to a hip injury that forced him to undergo surgery.
Despite currently being in position number 663 in the ATP ranking, Nadal will have no problem accessing the draw of any tournament, as he will use the protected rankingthat is, the classification he had when he declared himself on long-term sick leave, in his case, number 9.
He will be eligible for his first nine contests or nine months if he doesn’t reach that number. however, in Brisbane he will not ‘spend’ any of his nine bullets as he will attend with an invitation from the tournamentwhich announced this Wednesday the complete list of participants.
Holger Rune (8) will start as the first seedwith Grigor Dimitrov (14), Ben Shelton (17) and Ugo Humbert (20) as rivals with more options.
Andy Murray is another well-known name of a tournament in which Nadal is the only Spanish representative, unless someone else passes the qualifying phase.
It should be noted that, Despite having a protected ranking, Rafa Nadal cannot be seeded in any tournamentwhich will depend on the luck of the draws to avoid facing the first round with the best players in each tournament.
So far, Nadal has only confirmed his presence in Brisbane, where he already competed in 2017, reaching the quarterfinals. He beat Alexander Dolgopolov and Mischa Zverev, lost to Milos Raonic. He will be a finalist later the Australian Open, which is always his priority and where this year he will look to test his recovery against the best in the world.
Brisbane Tournament
Official list of participants
Holger Rune – No.8
Grigor Dimitrov – No.14
Ben Shelton – No.17
Ugo Humbert – No.20
Sebastian Korda – No. 24
Sebastian Baez – No. 28
Tomas Martin Etcheverry – No.30
Reilly Opelka – No.33 PR
Aslan Karatsev – No. 35
Roman Safiullin – No.39
Alexei Popyrin – No.40
Andy Murray – No.42
Matteo Arnaldi – No. 44
Max Purcell – No.45
Yoshihito Nishioka – No.47
Alexander Shevchenko – No.48
Yannick Hanfmann – No.51
JJ Wolf – No.53
Jordan Thompson – No.55
Daniel Altmaier – No.56
Marton Fucsovics – No.59
Marcos Giron – No. 60
Rafael Nadal (WC)
The
*There are nine other tennis players missing, who will appear in the preliminary round and the other invitations available in the tournament
Source: La Verdad
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