Bianca Andreescu dishes on love for Justin Bieber, toasts Sabalenka and Sinner at NHL All-Star Game

Bianca Andreescu is getting closer to a return to tennis following a back injury that's kept her out since August. Appearing at the NHL All-Star Game in Toronto over the weekend, the 2019 US Open champion said she's hoping for a return to competition for next month's BNP Pariabs Open.

"It's getting there. It's not 100%, but I'm really hoping that I can play Indian Wells," Andreescu told TSN's Mark Masters. "It's not guaranteed, but I'm taking it day by day, and I'm really hoping I can get back on court soon.

"[I've been doing] a lot of visualization work, meditation, to try to speed up the recovery time. Obviously, with something like this, you can't really speed anything up, other than rest, so that's what I've been doing. I've been doing stuff outside of the court, a lot of stuff in the gym, rehab, seeing my physio."

Andreescu plugged back into the action on tour to start 2024 (and has been posting about it, too), and said she was glued to the screen during the year's first Grand Slam.

"It's not fun watching other players play and you can't play that specific tournament, but it was nice watching the Australian Open," she said. "It was nice to get back into the groove of things.

"A lot of the matches were crazy. I wasn't surprised by Sabalenka, but Sinner ... he's amazing but I didn't think it would come so soon. He's had amazing results, [and] I'm definitely happy for him."

Canada's first-ever Grand Slam champion said it was "exciting" to be at the game for the first time, especially considering the last one in Toronto was in 2000, the year she was born. Andreescu was joined at the festivities by stars including singers Justin Bieber, Michael Buble and Tate McRae, and actor Will Arnett.

Andreescu, like her fellow US Open champion Coco Gauff, was particularly starstruck by Bieber, who performed live for the first time in over a year in the days leading up to the All-Star Game.

"My inner child was screaming to the core," she confessed. "I was obsessed with him for, like, five years, when I was 9. 10, 11, 12. He was one of the first concerts I ever went to, so seeing him after 10 years, it was insane."