There’s more to Rafael Nadal than just his muscular brand of tennis. The world No.1 Spaniard once again showed the softer side of his personality on a visit to the tennis academy for underprivileged children, set up by the Rafael Nadal Foundation, at Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.
Rafa, who lost in the Shanghai Masters pre-quarterfinals last week, arrived at the Bangalore airport on Sunday morning and drove to Anantapur. The quick stopover was a hush-hush affair and the champion didn’t even seek security cover from the local police.
“Nadal visited the tennis academy at the Rural Development Trust’s (RDT) sports stadium. He and his family were involved in setting up that academy and I think he came to have a look,” Anantapur district collector Dr B Janardhan Reddy said.
Last month, Rafa’s mother Anna Maria Nadal Parera and his sister Maria Isabel had also made a visit here. The academy has three courts and Anna Maria plans to call it the Nadal Tennis School.
It was the RDT, an NGO set up by Father Vincente Ferrer of Spain, that had attracted the Nadals’ attention.
The tennis ace’s website said: “It is not the first time Rafa travels to India, where he has an academy...His foundation has also worked in the Anantapur Educational Center project, in collaboration with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation.
The aim of this trip is to assist in the transformation of one of the poorest and most needy areas of India, Anantapur, and some of the poorest and most excluded communities in the world, the ‘dalits’ or untouchables, tribal groups, as well as the so-called disadvantaged castes.”
