Rafael Nadal had his first child with Xisca Perelló

The tennis player Rafael Nadal he is already a father for the first time: this afternoon, in Palma de Mallorca, he enjoyed the arrival of the child who bears his name and who is the fruit of his relationship with Maria Francisca Perello. The champion of 22 Grand Slam titles had spent several months awaiting the state of health of his wife, better known as “Xisca”, and could only be present for one day in the last Laver Cup because the delivery could occur at any time.

“There are more important things I must attend to”, he said after losing in the round of 16 of the US Open with Frances Tiafoe. Nadal will return to the circuit from October 31 at the Paris-Bercy Masters 1000, the prelude to the Turin masters event (November 13 to 20) .

Rafa was the only member of the “Big Three” without brand new paternity. Roger Federer has twin girls, Myla and Charlene, and twin boys, Leo and Lenny, while Novak Djokovic has a son, Stefan, and a daughter, Tara.

According to the newspaper Ultima Hora, at the end of the Spanish summer the alarms went off when it was learned that Xisca Perelló was admitted to a Palma private clinicat a time when Nadal was immersed in the US Open in New York, a tournament that left him eliminated before the count: “I need to go back (home). I have much more important things than tennis to attend to.” Later it was learned that his condition was not serious and, although an operation on the mother was considered, it was not carried out due to the advanced state of pregnancy in which she was.

Xisca thus had to remain at rest for the last remaining weeks of her pregnancy. Although there was speculation about a premature birth, according to the calculations that were handled, since the birth was scheduled for mid-October, so the first-born of the manacoríes, little ‘Rafa’, only came one or two weeks early.

Always discreet and low profile, Rafa and Xisca have been together for almost two decades. But there was one person who was key in the beginning of this love story: MaribelRafael’s sister. It was thanks to her that the tennis player met, in full adolescence, the woman who years later would become his wife and future mother of his first child.

Xisca and Maribel went to the Pureza de María school in Manacor together and became very close friends. However, the relationship with Rafa began later, when the athlete began to take his first steps in the world tennis elite.

They were seen together for the first time in 2005, precisely in the year Nadal won the first of his 22 titles at Roland Garros. Since then, the presence of Xisca or “Mery” is a constant in the important appointments of his life partner. Although both prefer to keep their respective spaces.

In January 2019, after more than 14 years of dating, they announced their engagement and They were married on October 19 of that year in an absolutely intimate wedding at the Sa Fortalesa estate in Mallorca.a dream place surrounded by the sea whose origin dates back to the 17th century.

THE NATION