RAFAEL NADAL

EARLY LIFE
                 Rafael Nadal was born in Manacor, a town on the island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands, Spain, to parents Ana María Parera and Sebastian Nadal Homar. His father is a businessman, owner of an insurance company, glass and window company Vidres Mallorca, and the restaurant, Sa Punta. Rafael has a younger sister, María Isabel. His uncle, Miguel Ángel Nadal, is a retired professional footballer, who played for RCD Mallorca, FC Barcelona, and the Spanish national team. He idolized Barcelona striker Ronaldo as a child, and via his uncle got access to the Barcelona dressing room to have a photo with the Brazilian. Recognizing in Rafael a natural talent, another uncle, Toni Nadal, a former professional tennis player, introduced him to tennis when he was three years old.
                   At age 12, Nadal won the Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group, while also playing football. Nadal's father made him choose between football and tennis so that his school work would not deteriorate entirely. Nadal said: "I chose tennis. Football had to stop straight away.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE
                  Rafael Nadal currently ranked world No. 2 in men's singles tennis by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) . He has won 19 Grand Slam singles titles, the second-most in history for a male player, as well as a record 35 ATP Tour Masters 1000 titles, 21 ATP Tour 500 titles and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. In addition, Nadal has held the world No. 1 ranking for a total of 209 weeks, including being the year-end No. 1 five times. In majors, Nadal has won a record twelve French Open titles, four US Open titles, two Wimbledon titles and one Australian Open title, and won at least one Grand Slam every year for a record ten consecutive years (2005–2014). Nadal has won 85 career titles overall, including the most outdoor titles in the Open Era (83) and a record 59 titles on clay. With 81 consecutive wins on clay, Nadal holds the record for the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era.
 
RIVALRY WITH ROGER FEDERER
                  You know that a sports rivalry has gone pretty far when it has its own Wikipedia page. Such is the case with the career-long battle between Roger Federer and the Spanish tennis superstar Rafael Nadal. The showdowns between the two are invariably epic and have risen above and beyond their own sport to such an extent that when soccer superstar Juan Mata was promoting his autobiography in 2019, he gave Tennis 365 a lengthy exclusive interview just to rant about Federer and Nadal. 
                    Mr. Mata is not alone in having strong feelings about the two tennis giants and their magnificent meetings. ATP Tour calls the Federer-Nadal rivalry "arguably the most enthralling in the history of tennis." The only reason Bleacher Report didn't include the pair's 2007 Wimbledon final on their list of ten most epic tennis matches in history is the fact that their legendary rematch the very next year holds the top spot with its "four hours and 48 minutes of classic tennis." After all, can't have two guys hogging all the spots on the list. You'd think that two men embroiled in such a heated and public rivalry would dislike each other, but Tennis 365 tells us Federer and Nadal are actually on excellent terms, to the point that they have been known to team up in the Laver Cup event. "He is a rival and a friend," Federer says of his Spanish frenemy.

RERSONAL LIFE
                    In addition to tennis and football, Nadal enjoys playing golf and poker. In April 2014 he played the world's No. 1 female poker player, Vanessa Selbst, in a poker game in Monaco. In June 2009 the news of his parents separating circulated in the Spanish newspaper “La Vanguardia”and the New York Times. The news came after weeks of speculations that surfaced in the Internet posts and message boards over Nadal's personal issues as the cause of his setback. Nadal has been in a relationship with María Francisca (Xisca) Perello. Since 2005, and their engagement was reported in January 2019. The couple married in October 2019.




by Team untoldsecrets