Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal will play an exhibition match in Quito on Sunday, November 27, with a rival yet to be defined, as part of a tour that the Majorcan athlete plans to carry out in Latin America. The match will be played at the Rumiñahui Coliseum, as the culmination of a series of activities that Nadal will carry out for two days in Quito, former Ecuadorian tennis player Nicolás Lapentti, organizer of the event, announced on Wednesday at a press conference.
Nadal’s visit to Quito will be similar to the one Swiss tennis player Roger Federer made in 2019, when he faced German Alexander Zverev in an exhibition match, also in the Ecuadorian capital. In a video shown during the press conference, Nadal stated that he is excited about visiting Ecuador for the first time.
“The Latin American public has always welcomed me with open arms and it will be special for me to visit this country for the first time,” said Nadal. “I would love to have more time to visit the country in the future.
We will leave the Galapagos Islands for the next one. Hopefully we can make a match day an unforgettable day”, he concluded. Among the candidates to be Nadal’s rival there are several “top-level” tennis players, including the Argentine Diego Schwartzman, but it has not yet been defined because most of them are pending to define their participation in the final phase of the Davis Cup, which is disputed on the same dates, according to Lapentti.
The former Ecuadorian tennis player explained that the talks to organize this exhibition match began in December 2019, but with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic they were paralyzed until they resumed in November 2021.
Rafa Nadal amazed everyone
Rafael Nadal returns to the US Open this year for the first time since winning the title in 2019. While the pandemic kept him away in 2020, his chronic foot condition ruled him out last year. “Well, be focused (and) try to win .
You know when you play finals, the feeling before is unique, no? Because you know you are playing for something that’s gonna stay for the rest of your career and when you are all walking through the tunnel to go out, you see the stadium packed ,” said Rafael Nadal.
“The energy that New York brings to you is so, so special, so I (am) in just some way nervous, focused but at the same time, exciting and appreciating the moment,” he added. “Things have been so difficult after that (winning the 2019 US Open) with the pandemic, I had injuries – have been a couple of very tough years now,” he admitted.
“Even that way I managed to play some good tennis, to achieve some titles and this year have been very emotional after a tough couple of years.”