Nick Kyrgios is set to make his highly-anticipated Grand Slam return at the Australian Open in January.
The 29-year-old will make his return to the court at the World Tennis League this month, having only played one game of professional tennis in the past two years due to injury.
He had ruled himself out of the Australian Open in 2023 due to a knee injury that required surgery, before having to pull out of the French Open later that year with a foot injury.
However, now, it’s been confirmed that Kyrgios will finally make his return to a tennis major for the Australian Open next month.
Kyrgios, who will play with a protected ranking of 21, will be one of six men and six women using protected rankings at Melbourne Park.
In October, Kyrgios has previously claimed that he wants to win a Grand Slam and ‘shut people up’.
Nick Kyrgios is set to make his highly-anticipated Grand Slam return at the Australian Open
The Aussie tennis star has been sidelined for the past year after he had to undergo surgery on a ruptured ligament in his wrist
Kyrgios appears to have been working hard to return to full fitness, telling 9News : ‘Honestly, this is probably the best I’ve felt in two years.’
He revealed that he had only a ’15 per cent chance’ to make it back to playing at his best, before lifting the lid on how hard his comeback has been.
‘Physically it was brutal,’ Kyrgios said. ‘Mentally, I wasn’t going to allow myself [to give up].
‘I always have wanted to leave the game of tennis myself. I wasn’t going to let this injury be the dictator of if I would ever play again.’
The former Wimbledon finalist has previously opened up on the severe pain that he had felt in his wrist, which left him ‘unable to open doors or jars’ according to The Canberra Times .
He had suffered a full rupture of the scapholunate ligament in his wrist – a band of tissue that provides strenght and stability to a person’s hand.
Since then, he has been taking some innovative measures to get his body back to full strength, revealing that he had even gone as far as hitting fluffy tennis balls kids use.
‘I honestly didn’t feel improvement in my wrist,’ he told 9News.
Kyrgios opened up on his ‘brutal’ return to full fitness following a spate of injuries
‘I started hitting fluffy balls that under-10s kids learn on. I had to start from there and basically learn how to use my right wrist all over again.’
Like Kyrgios, Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Belinda Bencic is also set to use her protected ranking to enter the Australian Open main draw.
British stars Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie, Katie Boulter, Emma Raducanu, Sonay Kartal and Jodie Burrage have also been confirmed on the main draw list.
