To see detailed h2h stats and predictions for Rafael Nadal vs Novak Djokovic, see our Stevegtennis head to head prediction here.
While questions remain over whether either of them will compete at this year’s BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have been announced on the initial entry lists for the tournament. It will be the fourth year running Djokovic will be absent while Nadal will be hoping to be well enough to defend his finals points from last year, where he was defeated by Taylor Fritz in the final.
Djokovic’s absence continues to be because of his unvaccinated status with the United States still yet to remove the ruling for foreign travellers. With a month until the tournament starts, any change looks unlikely to happen. Djokovic’s participation may well have been in doubt anyway due to the hamstring injury that he picked up in Australia before winning his tenth Australian Open.
Nadal’s recovery time for his latest hip injury was expected to be somewhere between 1 and 2 months, meaning that it would definitely be touch and go ahead of the mid-March start. With the Spaniard likely to schedule more cautiously post-recovery, it would be a major surprise to see him involved even if he was fit enough to play at least one match. The goal for him will remain to be as fit and ready for a French Open that is setting up to be a tiebreaker between Nadal and Djokovic, now both on 22 slams.
It is likely that the No. 1 seed at the event will end up being Carlos Alcaraz, who is yet to play this year. The World No.2 will be hoping to build on a stunning 2022, where he won his first slam and temporarily took top spot in the rankings. All of the Top 20 will be involved as of now, including former champs Cameron Norrie and Taylor Fritz.
For additional head to head predictions of Rafael Nadal Novak Djokovic, you can see detailed H2H stats for Rafael Nadal vs Novak Djokovic.
To see all our predictions for upcoming matches, based on our machine learning model analysing results since 1960, see our tennis predictions page here.
