Rafa Nadal confirms he'll play at Rio 2016

Earlier this week the Spanish superstar cautioned that he was still a doubt, given the wrist injury he has been battling since the French Open.

But on Tuesday night he spoke to reporters after an extensive practice session, and confirmed that he is pain-free and certain to contest the singles tournament - and possibly also the doubles as well.

"After discussing it with my team, I have decided I will play everything that I can. We are here and practice has gone well - more or less," said Nadal, who will be Spain's flag bearer at the Games.

"It's obvious that it's not the ideal situation, but at the same time, my captain had the confidence today that the best option is to try to have some positive results for our country.

"The best thing is doing the six hours of practice that the wrist is not worse than yesterday. That's great news. ..

"Yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday) have been my strongest training in two months and the wrist has not gotten worse."

The world number five won gold in the singles at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and his participation will be a massive boost to organisers, particularly given that world number four Stan Wawrinka has joined compatriot Roger Federer in pulling out with injury.

Those withdrawals - as well as the others which have already happened - prompted questions over how much the gold medal will mean in Rio.

Milos Raonic and Tomas Berdych both pulled out citing concerns over the Zika virus, while Dominic Thiem initially decided to play the ATP Tour Los Cabos event before withdrawing from that as well.

Top-30 players Nick Kyrgios, Bernard Tomic, Richard Gasquet, John Isner, Sam Querrey and Feliciano Lopez are also absent.

Andy Murray, who beat Novak Djokovic and Federer back to back to win gold in London, defended the strength of the field: " It's unfortunate with Roger and Stan, they're two guys that are both great players and capable of winning events like this so it's a shame that they aren't here.

"But it's still a pretty strong field, a lot of the top-20 players are here even if unfortunately there's a few of the top 10 missing."