Will injured Rafael Nadal's incredible top 10 streak come to an end?

Rafael Nadal has done something no other man has accomplished in tennis history as he is a little over two months short of completing a staggering 18 consecutive years inside the top 10 of the ATP rankings. However, the Spaniard's incredible streak is in danger of ending before he hits the 18-year mark, with the 22-time Grand Slam champion set to miss a host of tour-level action.

Nadal is currently nursing a 'Grade 2 injury' to the iliopsoas, which is an inner hip muscle. The injury has a typical recovery period of 6-8 weeks, as confirmed by the Spaniard shortly after his early Australian Open exit and again two weeks ago.

Nadal's layoff from the tour owing to the left hip injury is expected to extend at least until the end of the Indian Wells Masters, given the length of the recovery period. This means that the World No. 6 is set to miss the Dubai Tennis Championships as well along with Indian Wells, both tournaments in which he has a lot of points to defend.

While he did not play in Dubai last year, he had earlier announced his plans to compete there this year, thus also defending the 500 ranking points he gained from playing in last year's Acapulco Open, which will be held in the same week as Dubai at the end of February 2023. He will now certainly drop those 500 points. Additionally, he reached the final at Indian Wells last year and will lose 600 points next month after missing the 2023 edition.

Nadal's realistic target for a return to the tour is the Miami Open, which begins the week after Indian Wells. However, his participation in Miami also remains highly doubtful as the 36-year-old might not want to rush into a return with the clay court season set to begin right after Miami.

However, the fact that the more tournaments he misses, the more it risks his top 10 streak, puts the Spanish legend in great dilemma. Already down to No. 6 after a second-round exit at the Australian Open as the defending champion, Nadal could leave the top 10 for the first time since April 2005, even before the claycourt season begins.

The four players behind him in the rankings right now - Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Holger Rune and Hubert Hurkacz - are all within 1,000 ranking points of the 36-year-old, putting him at even more risk. If he does indeed make a comeback at the start of the clay season, his first tournament will be at the Monte Carlo Masters, which begins on April 9th, almost two full months from now.

Why Rafael Nadal has a great chance to climb back up the rankings before French Open 2023

Rafael Nadal in action at the 2022 French Open.

While Rafael Nadal's 18-year-long run of staying inside the top 10 of the ATP rankings is under serious threat, on the flip side, he then has a great chance of climbing back up the rankings in quick time. The Spaniard favors clay more than any other surface and this time he has very few ranking points to defend in the build-up to the French Open, which he won for a 14th time last season.

The winner of 11 Monte Carlo Masters titles and 12 Barcelona Open titles missed both tournaments last year due to a rib injury. He later lost in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open, a tournament he has won five times, and in the Round-of-16 of the Italian Open, where he has won a record 10 titles. He has only 270 points to defend in all before the Paris Grand Slam.

If he fully recovers from his hip injury in time for the full claycourt season, the Mallorca native will fancy his chances at each of those tournaments and thus climb back inside the top 10 ahead of his Roland Garros title defense.