Rafael Nadal: World No 2 withdraws from Spain's opening match at ATP Cup with bad back
The 34-year-old announced his withdrawal on Twitter; his decision coincided with Roger Federer's decision to pull out of the ATP Cup entirely; Nadal is hopeful of returning to action on Thursday when Spain take on Greece
Tuesday 2 February 2021 13:35, UK
Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from Spain's opening match at the ATP Cup in Melbourne due to a bad back.
The world No 2 announced on Twitter that the decision had been taken for him not to feature in the opening Group B match against hosts Australia.
"Hi all, we have decided with #TeamSpain and my team, to not play today the first match of the @ATPCup here in #Melbourne since I have a stiff low back. Hopefully I'll be better for Thursday. We have a strong team, all the to @pablocarreno91 @BautistaAgut & @M_Granollers #vamos," he wrote.
Roberto Bautista Agut and Pablo Carreno Busta did not let Spain feel the absence of the 20-time Grand Slam winner, defeating Alex de Minaur and John Millman in their respective singles matches to settle the tie.
Greece are the opponents for Spain on Thursday as players continue to prepare for the Australian Open, which gets under way next Monday.
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- Resurgent Azarenka relishing Melbourne return
Roger Federer is also injured and withdrew from the ATP Cup - but the remainder of the world's top 10 players are competing, including No 1 Novak Djokovic.
Djokovic kicked off his season in style with a 7-5 7-5 win over Denis Shapovalov on his favourite Rod Laver Arena court before returning to lead Serbia to a doubles victory over Canada that sealed their ATP Cup opener 2-1.
While Djokovic, now unbeaten in 10 ATP Cup matches, enjoyed a dream start world No 3 Austrian Dominic Thiem slumped to a 6-2 6-4 defeat to Italy's Matteo Berrettini in his opener.
There was more joy for Berrettini as he returned for doubles duty alongside Fabio Fognini to trounce Thiem and Dennis Novak 6-1 6-4 and claim victory for Italy.
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World No 4 Daniil Medvedev and eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev also won their singles matches to help Russia to victory over Argentina in Group D in the evening session.
Medvedev downed ninth-ranked Diego Schwartzman 7-5 6-3 after Rublev stormed past Guido Pella 6-1 6-2.
Kyrgios makes winning comeback
In the Murray River Open, Nick Kyrgios played his first match for almost a year and edged to a 3-6 6-4 7-6 (7-4) victory over Frenchman Alexandre Muller.
The 25-year-old, who needed treatment on his knee at the end of the first set, was happy with the way he handled the situation.
Kyrgios said: "After the first set I could have panicked. So I'm actually happy the way I dealt with it and I just drew from experience. I was nice to myself.
"It was a strange one, to be out there again playing a competitive match. Just the scoring system seemed a bit weird.
"It was fun to be out there again, and obviously good to win, but I had a couple injuries coming through this last year. Actually more so than I would playing. So I just wanted to see what my body would do, and it actually did pretty well."
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