Centre Court of Barcelona Open to be named Rafa Nadal Court

vernonbc

Legend
A lovely and well deserved honour for the King of Clay will be bestowed upon him next week. The Barcelona Tennis Club will have a ceremony next week to officially name Centre Court the Rafa Nadal Court. :)


04/21/2017
The centre court of the RCTB will be named the Rafa Nadal court

The centre court of the Real Club Tenis Barcelona (RCTB) will be named Rafa Nadal in tribute to the player who has dominated the Barcelona Open during the last decade and who is now ready to fight for the tenth title at the historic tournament of the ATP circuit.

The agreement was made last night unanimously and by acclamation in the Extraordinary Assembly of the RCTB that took place in the multipurpose sports hall of the centenary entity. "For us it is a pride to have a player like Nadal, one of the best in the history and who has joined the club since he was 11 years of age," said Albert Agustí, president of the club, who has indicated that "by naming the centre court Rafa Nadal we position ourselves at the same level of tournaments that dedicate their courts to their legends.”

The official ceremony of this well-deserved baptism will take place in the coming days. The organization will wait for the player to arrive in Barcelona to agree on the most appropriate time to carry out the ceremony.

Both the RCTB and the Organizing Committee of the Barcelona Open have wanted to pay tribute to the great figure of the tournament and which everyone considers not only the best Spanish tennis player ever, but the best Spanish sportsman of all time.

At the same meeting it was agreed to appoint as members of honor Mr. Javier Godó, Count of Godó, and the tennis player Marc López, Gold Olympic champion at the doubles tournament of the last Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

In addition to winning the Barcelona Open on nine occasions, Nadal belongs to the sporting discipline of RCTB, whose facilities he uses throughout the season.

The Catalan tournament is aligned with other major tennis events that have previously decided to name their sports venues and main courts with the names of their sports legends such as Roland Garros (Philippe Chartrier and Suzanne Lenglen), the Australian Open (Rod Laver and Margaret Court), the US Open (Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King) or the Mutua Madrid Open (Manolo Santana and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario).

https://www.barcelonaopenbancsabadell.com/en/news/centre-court-rctb-will-be-named-rafa-nadal-court
 
Shouldnt they wait until he retires??? Weird that he will be playing on his own court.

Still a huge honor and deserved.

Well I am sure Basel will do the same with Roger Federer whether he's still an active player or retired.

But great honor for Rafa. That was to be expected. Kudos to him.
 
It's a nice and undoubtedly well deserved honour but I tend to think these kind of honours are best reserved for post retirement and not while the player is still active. Isn't it going to be a bit distracting for him to play on a court named after him?
 
Maybe Monte Carlo will name the tournament after him.

Hell, I wouldn't say it was undeserved if they just renamed clay court tennis after him

As for it being odd about having it done while he's still active, I agree... I guess it creates scope for humongous bragging rights of -

"beating Nadal on his own court"
 
Weird playing on his own court. Even stranger if he loses on it. They should wait for him to retire first.
 
Probably. In the city of Halle, there's a street or avenue named after him already

images
 
Probably. In the city of Halle, there's a street or avenue named after him already
What does this centre court naming have to do with Fed? o_O Rafa has a major street in Madrid named after him already, not just a little avenue by the tennis court. Considering many tennis traditions, this naming of centre court after Rafa is a distinctive award. I'm really looking forward to the ceremony. His family and friends and fans will be justifiably very proud. :)
 
No, he's actually from Islas Baleares, but basically the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community are small Catalonias and speak variants of Catalonian.

Doesn't that mean they are all branches of the same people and language?
 
There are 17 autonomous communities in Spain. Catalonia, Valencia and Balearic Islands are autonomous communities.

Mallorca belongs to the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The dialect of Catalan spoken in Mallorca differs from Catalan spoken in Barcelona.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_communities_of_Spain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorca

So, do the Catalans not regard anyone who lives outside Catalonia as a Catalan even if they speak a variant of the same language?
 
So, do the Catalans not regard anyone who lives outside Catalonia as a Catalan even if they speak a variant of the same language?

That's what I read:
¤¤ Now “Catalans”, “Mallorcans” and “Valencians” would not wish to recognise themselves as “one sole people”, but rather see themselves as “three fraternal peoples”.
Mallorcans and Valencians seem reluctant to embrace a denomination such as “Catalans”, which no longer has the generic value of its origins for them, but has taken on a specific regional application. ¤¤
http://diliname.eu/index.php/catalonia/item/41-a-question-of-names.html
 
looks forward next year to djokovic, murray and federer to play barcelona not to win the tournament, but to compete to become the sole conqueror of nadal at the nadal stadium, will become a bigger feat than doing it at roland garros
 
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