An alliance of Grand Slam champions will highlight the Paris doubles draw.
Rafael Nadal will join forces with veteran doubles champion Leander Paes in next week's BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.
Video: Farewell Flavia; Captain Hewitt
Paes confirmed the partnership with this tweet.
It will be Nadal's first appearance in the Paris doubles field since 2009 when he teamed with Juan Monaco in a first-round loss.
Nadal played doubles with good buddy Marc Lopez in Basel this week. They beat Borna Coric and Viktor Troicki in their opener, before losing to second seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in two tight sets.
Nadal owns nine doubles titles, including winning Doha with Monaco earlier this season. Rafa has been trying to use his net skills more and draw opponents forward as well in recent weeks. Playing the Paris doubles will give him additional match play he craves, help him work on hitting targets on both serve and return and give him more repetitions at net with a highly experienced partner and master of court positioning.
The 42-year-old Paes has played with more than 100 different partners during his doubles career. Paes partnered former No. 1 Martina Hingis to Grand Slam mixed doubles championships at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open this season. They became the first team since 1969 to win three of the four mixed doubles crowns in the same season.
Paes has played with several singles standouts this season including Andy Murray (in Montreal), Stan Wawrinka (in Cincinnati), Fernando Verdasco (US Open) and Grigor Dimitrov (Kuala Lumpur).