Rafael Nadal's team offer Barcelona Open hope amid claims Spaniard will miss tournament

Rafael Nadal could yet play next week's Barcelona Open after picking up a rib injury in Indian Wells. The world No 4 confirmed he would be out for four to six weeks after suffering a stress fracture in one of his ribs but his doctor and the Barcelona tournament director both shared their hopes that he could recover early enough to compete in next week's ATP 500 event. After rumours spread that Nadal had been ruled out from the upcoming tournament, his PR manager appeared to shut down the claims and offer hope that he would be back in action.

Nadal won his first 20 matches of the ATP season before losing the Indian Wells final to Taylor Fritz. His last win came in the Indian Wells semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz, in which he later discovered he had picked up a rib injury. It left the 21-time Grand Slam champion sidelined at the start of his most successful part of the season, the clay swing.

While the Barcelona Open fell in this time frame, former world No 3 and tournament director David Ferrer said he thought his compatriot had "time to recover" before the event while the Spaniard's doctor had also revealed there was hope the recovery period could be shortened, giving way for a return at next week's ATP 500. "For now, priority is to remove the pain. Once the pain's removed we'll be working as much as we can. With this in mind and the evolution it has, we'll see if we can shorten the time, though four to six weeks is quite logical," Dr Angel Ruiz Cotorro said in the days after Nadal announced he had picked up the injury.

It appeared that Nadal has officially made the decision to skip Barcelona after reports emerged on Monday but his head of communications Benito Perez-Barbadillo has now questioned the rumours as it