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Following a false start several months ago that forced him to go back under the knife, Juan Martin del Potro has officially announced that he will return to singles competition at the Miami Open, after paying doubles last week at Indian Wells. In his first match back on tour, Del Potro, who has fallen well past No. 600 on the tour, will come up against Canada’s Vasek Pospisil. It will mark the first time that the two competitors will meet on the professional tour and could make for an enthralling encounter.

After spending most of 2014 on the sidelines, del Potro made his return to tennis in Sydney. While few expected much, he managed to reach the quarter-final round at the Apia Sydney International, where he was the defending champion. He defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky and followed up with a three-set win over Fabio Fognini before losing to Mikhail Kukushkin the following round. However, he withdrew from the Australian Open soon afterwards and was under the knife just a few days later.

Now, following a second surgery on his wrist, del Potro believes he is fit to resume professional competition, even if he does not have high hopes for his own performance at the tournament.

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“I focus only on entering the court to play my first match,” del Potro told the ATP World Tour. “I do not care about the result yet, but to leave the court fully well physically.

“I think being here in this tournament energises me again,” said del Potro. “At times I feel a bit far in the rankings. I know I have a long way to go. When I was No. 4 in the world, everything was much easier. Even the objectives that I had were different.”

With just a 7-7 record in singles so far this season, Vasek Pospisil is playing far from his best tennis in 2015. His best performance so far this season was at the Aussie Open, where he reached the third round of the tournament. He most recently fell to Andy Murray in the second round of Indian Wells and will now be faced with another tricky draw in Miami, where he could be slotted against Grigor Dimitrov in the second round.

This is just the first time that del Potro and Pospisil will cross paths on the ATP World Tour. While both players are far from their best currently, it is del Potro who will be the worse for wear in this opening round given his injury layoff.

Prediction: Vasek Pospisil in Three Sets

Shortly after completing his stay at Indian Wells, Rafael Nadal flew across the United States to Miami, where he immediately begun preparation for the second Masters 1000 event of the season. However, things quickly took a turn for the worst when it was revealed that the world No. 3 had taken a serious fall during one of his practice sessions and turned his left ankle.

While there was some concern that Nadal would not be fit to play at the tournament, the Spaniard revealed that he still expects to compete at the event.

“It’s for sure I’m going to be on court on Friday,” Nadal told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “The thing is, I don’t know how well I’m going to be prepared for then. I hope to be ready. It’s an important tournament for me.”

At the time of the fall, Nadal was certain he would be unable to perform in Miami, yet a few days of rest and treatment has changed his mind.

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“In the beginning, I thought that was going to be the end of the tournament,” Nadal said. “I am confident I’m going to be ready.”

Nadal took to court on Tuesday to practice and claimed to have not been bothered by his ankle at all. He did not even require an X-ray or MRI.

“I feel pain,” Nadal said. “It’s obviously normal. I was a little bit limited today, but I was able to practice one hour and a half, which is more than I expected yesterday when it happened.”

With the injury woe somewhat behind him, Nadal hopes to win his first career title in Miami. Following an opening round loss in Doha to kick off the season, Nadal reached the quarter-final in Melbourne, the semi-final in Rio, and won Buenos Aires before recently losing to Milos Raonic in the Indian Wells quarter-final.

You will be able to check out Miami Open Previews and Predictions Here

Maria Sharapova, the consensus world No. 2 on the WTA Tour, has been a resident of the United States for a significant portion of her life, and while she has always respected the nation that she resides in, she has never been interested in abandoning her own nationality for American citizenship.

In fact, even though Sharapova has not resided in Russia since the age of seven, she was one of the athletes who took part in the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics; she got to bear the Olympic torch all the way into the stadium.

“It was an honor, one of the best days of my career and my life,” Sharapova told CNBC. “My whole family was there watching. Pass through the stadium with the Olympic torch, it was great.”

Clearly proud of her heritage and culture, Sharapova suggested that there was never any doubt that she would remain a Russian citizen. After all, it was the Russian way of life that inspired her willpower and determination, she says.

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“If I had wanted to change citizenship, I would have done it, but I never thought about it. The Russian tradition has enriched my life, and the mentality and the tenacity of the Russians is part of me.

“It is about the family environment, it is about the rich culture. Just life experiences that I look back to and I know that for so many years I was shaped into the individual I was from those experiences. And not necessarily simply the country, but the people, the mentality and the toughness and that never giving up attitude.”

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