Rafael Nadal is set to play his second tournament of the season where he will take on Milos Raonic in the opening match of the upcoming Indian Wells, which will be played in the United States, on March 6.
The former world No.1 is poised to return to the court in Indian Wells after a brief absence due to a minor muscle tear in his hip region.
Nadal recently played against Carlos Alcaraz in an exhibition match at the Netflix Slam, which ended in a narrow defeat. However, his last ATP event was in January at the Brisbane International, where he reached the quarter-finals.
Nadal's upcoming opponent, Raonic, also faced injury setbacks. Despite being a former Indian Wells finalist, the Canadian is currently ranked outside the top 200 and has retired from two of his five matches this season. This will mark the 11th Tour-level encounter between the two, with the Spaniard emerging victorious in eight of their previous meetings.
If Nadal progresses past his opening match, he could face Danish seventh seed Holger Rune next. However, a challenging path awaits with potential matches against Taylor Fritz, Daniil Medvedev, Novak Djokovic, and reigning champion Alcaraz.
Top seed Djokovic will commence his campaign against either a qualifier or Aleksandar Vukic. This marks the Serb’s return to the event since 2019, having missed recent editions due to COVID-19-related reasons. His projected route includes matches against Tomas Martin Etcheverry, Tommy Paul, and potentially Casper Ruud and Daniil Medvedev.
In another section, Sinner and Alcaraz are competing for the No.2 ranking, with the current Australian Open champion defending 360 points compared to Alcaraz's 1000 points.
Several noteworthy first-round matches include Stan Wawrinka facing Tomas Machac, Denis Shapovalov against former US Open quarter-finalist Botic van de Zandschulp, and Andy Murray starting against a qualifier with the winner advancing to face Andrey Rublev.