Can you imagine Rafael Nadal in Mexico without his Mexican Open Tennis trophies? This happened for a few weeks after he was crowned champion of the 2005 edition of the Acapulco tournament and as they say, now we can laugh at everything.
The Manacorí will return to Acapulco to seek his fourth title in this tournament and incidentally, match the brand of championships boasted by David Ferrer and Thomas Muster. However, it already boasts a lot of experiences and anecdotes on Mexican beaches that are worth telling.
Between them, Rafael Nadal can recount the day he lost his Mexican Tennis Open trophy and this one ended up in the hands of a taxi driver from Mexico City (or so we think). The worst part of the case is that this was barely the third professional tournament he won and a few months later he was crowned at Roland Garros for the first time.
Mexsport Agency
Between rushing and flights: This is how Rafael Nadal lost the 2005 Mexican Tennis Open trophy
One of the first visits of the “King of Clay” to Mexico was when he was just an 18-year-old tennis player. It turns out and stands out that after the emotion experienced in the 2005 Mexican Tennis Open, which by the way was Rafael Nadal’s first participation in Acapulco, he was hit by the terrible CDMX traffic.
Once the press conferences, interviews and hustle and bustle of winning a tournament were over, Rafa had to go home and he was in a rush. This caused him and his work team to be about to miss their flight. Nevertheless, his representative Benito Pérez Barbadillo managed to take almost everyone on the plane.
“The traffic was unbelievably horrible. We were thinking that we were no longer on time. Luckily Benito knew one of the pilots and the plane waited for us, but in the rush to run away I left the trophy inside the taxi. Very grateful to the tournament, I was able to have the trophy they made for me with the plaque and everything“, Rafael Nadal told a few years ago.
The anecdote does not stop there because the organizing committee of the Mexican Tennis Open, headed by Raúl Zurutuza, took action on the matter to create a replica of the trophy that we think is in the hands of a lucky taxi driver. Or, if he didn’t realize he had some very special company, someone else decided to take him on a later trip. For now that is a mystery and we do not know if it can be solved.
“It is an urban legend because we do not know if it was stolen or lost, at that time Rafael Nadal was an 18-year-old boy. They are kids and I think it could have been the rush to check-in and leave it there (at the airport). What we did was reinstate him that same year in London in a ceremonyZurutuza said in an interview with Milenio.
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