Look no further for the “epicenter” of world tennis. He is neither in Wimbledon, where the cream of the racket is playing the London tournament from June 27, nor in Paris, Melbourne or New York. No, according to Rafael Nadal, his beating heart is now in Manacor, a town of 45,000 inhabitants in the Balearic archipelago. The native land of the Spanish champion.
In 2016, he opened the Rafa Nadal Academy there, an ultra-selective training center which has already transformed the destiny of the island of Majorca, a Mediterranean caricature of mass tourism. On the day of the inauguration, Roger Federer had made the trip, which goes to show the importance of the place for the tennis world.
Nadal, the champion with 92 titles, 22 in Grand Slam including 14 at Roland-Garros, decided to play at Wimbledon after yet another intervention in a Barcelona hospital, in mid-June, to counter the effects of the Müller-Weiss syndrome which twists his left foot. But his future is at stake in Manacor, where he has invested a large part of the fortune accumulated since his debut. According to the ATP, the international men’s tennis circuit, its total income since 2001 represents 122 million euros. At the last Roland-Garros tournament alone, he pocketed, on June 5, the sum of 2.2 million euros as winner.
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Psychological and nutritional aspects
The gigantic Mallorca complex covers 76,000 square meters. Sponsored by the telecom operator Movistar (Telefónica group), it is currently undergoing expansion works and will soon have 33 hard tennis courts and 22 clay courts, as well as 17 padel courts, two squash courts, a football pitch , a sports hall, four swimming pools, a fitness center, a spa, a 214-bed residence, restaurants, a sports clinic, a museum… Not to mention an international high school intended to allow the seeds of champions from world to continue their education on site, while wielding the racket to immerse themselves in the Nadal method. A clever combination of “technical work, character formation and education in values”, according to his uncle Toni Nadal, the coach from his beginnings who now trains the new generation of tennis in the Balearic Islands, with psychological and nutritional aspects.
In a series dedicated to the Rafa Nadal Academy, online on Amazon Prime Video since September 2021, the father of the greatest Spanish sportsman of all time, Sebastián Nadal Homar, recounts the difficulty his son had had to follow school. in the morning and tennis lessons in the afternoon, several kilometers away. From there was born the idea of the academy of Manacor.
After the Covid-19 air hole, this very high-end training center is booming. The aura of Nadal, 36, plays full. The squad is complete, with 150 apprentice players currently following a course there. Among them, hopefuls like the Andalusian Ariana Geerlings, twice Spanish junior champion, or the Jordanian Abdullah Shelbayh, one of the fifty best juniors in the world.
2700 euros per week
It also happens to young professionals to stay in Manacor. This is the case of Frenchman Corentin Moutet, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov and Japanese Naomi Osaka, ephemeral world No. 1, who lit the Olympic flame at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Cost of training: 50,000 euros l school year for minors, up to 2,700 euros per week for others, half-board accommodation included.
Nadal’s impact on the general public is undeniable, even if the official practice of tennis is in continuous decline in the Iberian Peninsula. In 2009, the national federation listed nearly 109,000 licenses. In 2021, it issued 80,000. It nevertheless estimates that the country has 3 million practitioners (the same proportion as in France, relative to the population).
In Mallorca, the greatest secrecy surrounds the management of Center Esportiu Manacor, the company that operates the Rafa Nadal Academy and employs 350 people on site. Its leaders admit to living “an exciting and intense period” but remain silent on the figures. On the Spanish commercial register, the Manacor center declares to have achieved 20.3 million euros in turnover in 2021, a level equivalent to the pre-pandemic years. In 2020, the health crisis had caused activity to drop by 30% and caused 57,000 euros in net loss, against more than 3 million euros in profits per year previously. By way of comparison, the international high school which is on the site displays 2.6 million euros in turnover.
L’empire Nadal
The Mallorca academy is Rafael Nadal’s main business, once his indulgences are satisfied, cars (he owns, among other things, an Aston Martin and a Ferrari), boats (in 2020, he swapped the Beethoven, a 23-meter yacht, against a Sunreef catamaran), and the luxury villas (a 7,000 square meter house in Majorca, another in the Dominican Republic, a 19th century building in the heart of Madrid).
The Manacor center is part of Aspemir, a group 100% owned by the star and led by Ana María Parera, his mother. The father is for his part at the controls of Debamina, a holding company which manages several companies involved in renewable energies and real estate, as well as the rights of the tennis player ambassador of the Santander bank, Kia cars, non-alcoholic beer Amstel, from the sports equipment manufacturer Nike, French rackets Babolat…
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The end of his career approaching, “the ogre of ochre”, currently world No. 4 and soon to be a father, is no longer confined to the Balearic Islands. It spreads training centers within large hotel complexes, the Rafa Nadal Tennis Center. He opened two in 2019, one in Mexico, on the Riviera Maya, the other in Greece, near Thessaloniki. In 2020, he also inaugurated a first Rafa Nadal Academy franchise in Kuwait. Very far from the Mallorcan epicentre.
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