Rafael Nadal stated on Thursday he couldn’t affirm that 2024 can be his remaining season earlier than retirement, saying it “makes no sense” to set a deadline for the top of his profession. The 22-time Grand Slam champion will make his return from a close to year-long harm absence on the Australian Open warm-up occasion in Brisbane subsequent month. The 37-year-old had beforehand instructed he would dangle up his racquet on the finish of 2024.

“There’s every chance that it’s going to be my last year and I’m going to enjoy the tournaments in that way,” Nadal stated in a video posted on his social media accounts.

“I don’t want to announce it because in the end I don’t know what can happen and I have to give myself the opportunity not to say one thing as then I’ll be a slave to what I said.

“I believe it’ll be like that however I am unable to be 100% positive as a result of in the long run I’ve labored quite a bit to return again to compete and if all of the sudden issues and my physique permit me to proceed and revel in what I do, why am I going to set a deadline?

“I think it makes no sense.”

Nadal was named on the entry record for the Australian Open earlier on Thursday forward of the beginning of the primary Grand Slam event of the yr on January 14.

The Spaniard has not performed since a second-round loss to American MacKenzie McDonald at Melbourne Park 11 months in the past.

He twice wanted surgical procedure after scuffling with a hip harm and has slipped to 664th on this planet rankings whereas sidelined.

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