Rafa Nadal is already in the capital of Spain to prepare his participation in the Mutua Madrid Open, whose men's team will start this Sunday. The Spaniard, who is exempt from the first round as second seed, will probably debut next Wednesday with a new racket bag designed by Babolat and KIA with drawings of children from the Spanish tennis player's Foundation. He arrived this Thursday morning to adapt to the altitude, pass the protocol PCR test and staying in one of the hotels in the bubble set up by the organization while waiting for the result, which was negative.
This Friday he will train for the first time at the Caja Mágica with Jaume Munar and will meet his possible rivals for the second round in the draw to be held at 18:30, and the route that he must travel if he wants to be champion of the tournament for the sixth time, a somewhat more achievable goal since Novak Djokovic, the world number one, refused to participate. The Serbian will lose 500 points for his absence, half of the 1,000 he obtained as champion of the last edition, that of 2019. Nadal, who recovered the second in the ranking at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, could cut the distance if he lifts again The throphy.
This Thursday he participated in a talk organized by the Madrid Open with its director, Feliciano López, broadcast by streaming within the ATP Warm-Up series and in which he answered questions from Internet users.