Stefanos Tsitsipas, Andy Murray, Fabio Fognini, Rafael Nadal and Denis Shapovalov are “back” on competitions playing the Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro.
The organization had to cancel its event because of the Coronavirus pandemic. However, they had the great idea of organizing a virtual tournament with the intent to help players struggling from a financial point of view.
The idea
There are 32 players competing in total (16 from the ATP and 16 from the WTA). The event will have 4 round robin groups and the top 2 players will advance to the quarters finals. From that moment, the competition will be played following a traditional knock-out format.
The 2 winners from the ATP and WTA will pocket €150,000 and they can decide how much money they will donate to the colleagues struggling from a financial point of view. In addition, the charity tournament will donate a total of €50,000 to the Madrid Food Bank.
Tournament director Feliciano López commented: “We’ve had a great response from all the players. From the first moment when the initiative was conceived, they were prepared to help.”
Big names are going to play on Monday. The top matches are (probably)” Nadal vs. Shapovalov, Tsitsipas vs. Fognini, and Murray vs. Monfils. Dreaming about the real one…
Who is Rafael Nadal’s Wife Xisca Perello?
Nineteen time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal had been dating Xisca Perello since they were teens and got married on 19th October 2019. According to the reports, Rafael Nadal proposed Xisca during a trip to Rome in May of the past year.
Who is Rafael Nadal’s wife Xisca Perello?
Maria Francisca Perello, 31, was born and raised in Mallorca, Spain. She is popularly known by her nickname Xisca. According to sources, Xisca met Rafael Nadal while the two were in high school and a friend introduced them.
However, it was only in 2005 when the pair officially started dating.
Xisca Perello is also a graduate in Business Administration and English from the United Kingdom. She is currently working as an insurance worker and also serves as a project director of the Rafa Nadal Foundation, which was launched a decade ago.
Xisca likes to keep her life private as she doesn’t have any public social media channels. Earlier, Xisca had revealed in an interview that she avoids getting celebrity status.
“It’s the celebrity world, not a world I want to be part of, nor do I think Rafa would have chosen to be with a woman who looked for that in life,” she said referring to the fact that she hardly events any events with Rafael Nadal.
Why is Xisca Perello absent from Nadal’s matches?
Xisca Perello is also often absent from Rafael Nadal’s tennis matches as she wants to preserve their relationship. The Mallorcan feels that her presence in Nadal’s matches would probably disrupt his focus.
She said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, “He (Rafael Nadal) needs his space when he is competing, and just the idea of me hanging around and waiting on his needs all day tires me out.”
She further added, “It would asphyxiate me. And then he would have to be worrying about me… No. If I followed him everywhere, I think there’s a risk we might stop getting along.”
Rafael Nadal and Xisca Perello marriage
The couple got engaged secretively in 2018 and the news remained private until 2019. The Spanish pair also wanted to keep their marriage a secret affair but the news went public earlier in 2019.
Rafael Nadal and Xisca Perello tied the knot on October 19 at La Fortaleza – a Spanish fortress in Mallorca. This fort is one of the most expensive properties in Spain. Some of the big names from the tennis fraternity were part of the 350-strong guest list.
Though Nadal and Perello have been quite private about their relationship over the years, Nadal expressed his desire to have a family one day. “I would love to have children, boys, girls…I’m a person who loves kids and I’m a family guy,” he said in an interview earlier.
