• Rafael Nadal motivated to ‘create beautiful project’ for tennis in Saudi Arabia – arabnews.com

“I think it’s going to be something interesting, that people are going to know more about my personal life, my daily life trying to come back. And of course they’re going to know more about my career, even if it’s very well known around, but to know a little bit more from inside, something that has never been talked about before,” Nadal said of the upcoming [Netflix] project.

… Would he consider coaching another player in future? “You never say never,” the Spaniard said. “Today it’s too early to think about this kind of stuff. I just need to organize my life. Now I don’t see myself in any project like this, but I don’t know how life is going to be in one, two, three years.”

• Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Alex Morgan, Emma McKeon: the Olympic champions and medallists who retired in 2024 – olympics.com

The two-time Olympic champion (singles at Beijing 2008 and doubles at Rio 2016), ended his Olympic career at his favourite Grand Slam venue of them all, Roland-Garros, where he won a record 14 French Opens. However, the clearly ailing veteran – who like Murray had struggled with injuries – lost in the second round of singles play in straight sets to eventual gold medallist Djokovic.

The 22-time Grand Slam singles champion also partnered Carlos Alcaraz in the doubles tournament, exiting – just as Murray and Evans did – in the quarter-finals. Nadal confirmed his retirement in October, and ended his career with a defeat in Málaga the following month as Spain lost to Netherlands in the last eight.

Nadal won five Davis Cup titles during his illustrious career, and is one of only three men – the others being Djokovic and Andre Agassi – to have won all four Grand Slams and an Olympic singles gold medal.

• The ‘genius’ behind ‘one of best images’ in tennis – bbc.com

“When the outfield meets the infield, the grass meets the dirt… seeing that from above, I saw a hybrid tennis court,” said Del Campo, who had previously tried unsuccessfully to arrange a mixed-surface match between Pete Sampras and Gustavo Kuerten, the leading grass and clay players before the Federer-Nadal era.

Del Campo first approached Nadal and Federer’s teams in 2005 with the idea and both eventually agreed to an exhibition match on the mixed surfaces, with the Swiss saying it would be “fun” and “exciting”.

“I think that the idea was irresistible for both Federer and Nadal,” Del Campo told the BBC’s Sporting Witness podcast.

Construction of the court took 19 days, costing $1.63m (£1.28m), and organisers had to tackle a worm infestation, but finally the court – described as “one of the best images that I’ve ever seen in tennis” by Djokovic – was ready.

VIDEO: In a podcast episode with The Slice Tennis, Felix Auger-Aliassime revealed that Toni Nadal is no longer his coach. However, Felix added that he is not the type of person who feels the need to publicly announce their parting ways on social media. He emphasized that it was a mutual decision, and there are no hard feelings. Felix also mentioned being very nervous when he first played Rafa Nadal at the Madrid Open in 2019. He noted that he had trained a few times at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, where he practiced with Rafa. Felix repeatedly stated that Rafa was “super, super humble,” even though they never had any long conversations.

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