Out of action since the semi-final loss at this year’s Australian Open, Rafael Nadal is gearing up for a big bang return in the upcoming clay court season.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion, who is one of many top stars missing from the men’s draw at the year’s first ATP Masters 1000 event in Miami, has made himself available for the entire clay court leg, starting with Monte Carlo.

Rafael Nadal will play four clay court events in the run-up to his title defense at French Open

Keen to build up to a successful title defense at Roland-Garros, Nadal will play four clay-court events in total, namely Monte Carlo, Barcelona, hometown Madrid and Rome.

The Spaniard lifted his 13th French Open title, more than any other player past or present, last year and will be hoping to continue his remarkable run this year as well.

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He will mark his return to competitive action at the Monte Carlo event, which will be staged from April 11 to April 18 and then play the ATP 500 event in Barcelona from April 19 to April 25.

The Spaniard will return to his base, Madrid, to wage his third straight clay-court campaign from May 2 to May 9. He will then fly off to Rome to play the prestigious Italian Open, which will kick off on May 9 and culminate on May 16.

Build-up events will give Rafael Nadal enough momentum going into Roland-Garros

The series of build-up events and the matches therein will have given the 34-year-old Nadal enough momentum going into the French Open, which gets underway on May 23.

And, by June 6, which is the closing date at Roland-Garros, the tennis world will have known if all the build-up action translated into a happy culmination for the Spaniard.

Nadal will also be keen on picking up some valuable ranking points during the clay-court swing to regain the second spot in the singles rankings.

Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev’s final appearance at the Australian Open and his run of wins from last year, which saw him pick the prestigious Rolex Paris Masters and the Nitto ATP Finals titles back-to-back, lifted him to number 2 in the ranking, with the Spaniard dropping to third.

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More than anything else, the Nadal fans will hope he stays injury-free till he arrives at his happy hunting ground.