Rafa Nadal will have several dates saved in his memory: his debut, his first Davis Cup with Spain, his first Roland Garros, gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics… And surely another of his indelible memories will have crossed his mind today.
Exactly 20 years ago, the man from Manaco achieved his first ATP triumph. And this could not arrive in the best place: the Mallorca Tournament. His rival was the Paraguayan Ramón Delgado, who recognized atptour.com that he only knew Nadal by hearsay to Carlos Moyá, since he had once trained with him.
The match ended with victory for the young man of 15 years, 10 months and 26 days for a double 6-4. “For me, at that time, it was spectacular to win my first victory as a professional. I remember well that it was against Ramón Delgado. It was a great experience, completely unexpected, but I enjoyed it. I had fun playing in front of my people”, Rafa pointed out in an ATP video about his best matches.
At that time, Nadal was number 762 in the world and had never played a match against a top 100 -Delgado was 82 at the time- in his short career. The one in Mallorca was his fourth professional tournament. The Futures tournament that was played in Madrid in 2001 was the first. Then came the ATP Challenger Tour in Seville and, a week before the Majorcan tournament, Rafa made his debut at the Conde de Godó in Barcelona.