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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Rafa Nadal retires 30 years after winning in Ibiza his first tournament

It was not as a professional, he was barely eight years old. But the tennis player Rafael Nadal Parera (June 3, 1986, Manacor) won the first tournament of his life in Ibiza just 30 years ago. It was in 1994, in the facilities of the Ibiza Club de Campo. He recalled it in 2010 in a conversation with Diario de Ibiza in his favorite territory, Roland Garros, a few meters away from the clay that reveres him and just a few days before winning his fifth Parisian tournament.

It was May 29. “The truth is that I won my first tournament in Ibiza,” recalled the tennis and sports legend in the pavilion that had set up the Balearic Government to promote the islands right in front of the number one court, the Philippe Chatrier. 14 years after sharing that memory with Es Diarinadal has announced today his retirement.

The Ibizan politician was present as general director of Tourism Promotion Vicent Torres (later president of the Consell de Ibiza with the PSOE, among other positions), who like many of the curious who came that day to the Balearic pavilion (many more than expected before the announcement of the presence of Nadal), could hear how the tennis legend gave another fact about his first title with a racket in his hand: “I was eight years old”.

Rafa Nadal Y Carlos Moyรก Con Miguel Navarro Y El Tenista Ibicenco Fran De La Torre.
Rafa Nadal and Carlos Moyรก with Miguel Navarro and the Ibizan tennis player Fran de la Torre / Diario de Ibiza

Nadal’s relationship with Ibiza has been maintained during all these years. On this island he keeps good friends and even a traveling companion for years when he was still a teenager and began to play tournaments such as the U12 and U14 nationals and the Nike circuit: coach Miguel Navarro, from the Ibiza Club de Campo, who then accompanied the Balearic tennis players in national and international tournaments, among them the Ibizan Esther Tur, Pilar Escandell and Mario Calvo.

Navarro recalls that Nadal won at the age of 16, and also at the Ibiza Club de Campo, the Josรฉ Cruz Tournament, with important cash prizes and where already consecrated national figures played.

This victory and the one he achieved in an under-12 Balearic championship, when he was just eight years old, are “even more difficult than winning a Roland Garros”, considers the Ibizan coach.

The best tennis player in the history of Spain is an impenitent vacationer of Formenterahe has been visiting the island for decades, especially by boat, as he loves its waters, and usually eats at the restaurant Es Molรญ de Sal, located at the crossroads between the beaches of Cavall d’en Borrร s and ses Illetes.

For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza websiteย here.

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