You remember September 2010. Rafa beat Novak Djokovic in the US Open final in New York and completed the career Grand Slam. What almost nobody saw was where he went a month later.
On a Sunday in October 2010, he landed in Bangalore and drove to Anantapur, a dry district in southern India. No one announced it. His mother and his sister came with him. Waiting for him was a tennis school with his name on it: clay courts, a pavilion, changing rooms and classrooms, built for children who could never have paid for any of it. He met 100 of them. The press found out after he had flown home.
That school is still running. So is the foundation that built it. In 2024 it won the Laureus Sport for Good Award, which made Rafa the first former Laureus winner to receive it. And the whole thing started at home, with his mother.
His mother's idea
In February 2008, at 21, Rafa presented the Fundacion Rafa Nadal at the tennis club in Manacor, Mallorca, where he started playing. He called it the start of his future. It was set up to help people who were left out, especially children and young people.
His mother, Ana Maria Parera, would run it as president. Rafa said she was one of the first people to teach him to care about people in need, by sponsoring children. His father, Sebastian, became its secretary. Uncle Toni, his coach, joined the board.
The foundation dates its real work to 2010. That year it launched its first two programs: the school in India, with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, and More Than Tennis, with Special Olympics, which teaches tennis to young people with intellectual disabilities.
Anantapur
The Nadal Educational Tennis School in Anantapur takes children regardless of caste or gender. They get tennis, English and computer classes, medical checkups and a daily nutritional supplement. It serves more than 250 children a year.
One of them is a girl named Pallavi. She joined the school in 2010, the year it opened. By 2019 she was part of its coaching staff. Think about that. A kid who started on those clay courts the year they were built was coaching on them nine years later.
Home first
Back in Spain, the foundation wanted a place of its own. In December 2015 it opened its first center, in the Nou Llevant district of Palma, on land the city provided. It served more than 140 children between 6 and 16 who were growing up in poverty, with sport, schoolwork support and therapy. Rafa was there for the opening, with his mother.
"The opening of the Rafa Nadal Foundation Centre is the result of work we have been developing for seven years."
Ana Maria Parera, president of the foundation, Palma, December 2015
Valencia came next, a center in the Natzaret neighborhood in 2019. Madrid's, in San Fermin, in the Usera district, opened in 2021. In between, when COVID-19 hit in 2020, the foundation paid for food and hygiene products for the families at its centers.
Madrid, then Malaga
In April 2024, at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid, the foundation was named the Sport for Good winner. His wife, Maria Francisca Perello, who directs the foundation, gave the speech.
Seven months later, on November 19, 2024, Rafa played his last professional match, for Spain at the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga. In his farewell he said people already knew the titles and the numbers. He asked to be remembered for something else. We will come back to his exact words.
Still showing up
In December 2025 he had surgery on his right hand for severe arthritis, and joked online that he would not be able to play the 2026 Australian Open.
Retired or not, he keeps turning up for it. On March 25, 2026, at Son Veri in Marratxi, Mallorca, he handed out the foundation's fourth annual awards to five charities, with his wife and his mother beside him. His mother is still the foundation's president. He told the room the foundation was his way of giving back the luck he has had in life, and that he is not someone who does things for show. The fifth edition is taking applications until October 23.
And on October 3, 2026, he picked up a racket in public again. His academy in Manacor turned 10, and Rafa captained Team Rafa, with Carlos Moya, David Ferrer and Richard Gasquet, against a Team Murray of Andy Murray, Marat Safin, Dominic Thiem and Fabio Fognini. It came down to a deciding tiebreak. Team Rafa won it.
Fans can recite the rest: the clay, the trophies, the numbers. The kid from Manacor asked to be remembered for something else, and he has spent 18 years building it.
GAMECHANGER™"I would like to be remembered more as a good person from a small village in Majorca"
Rafael Nadal, farewell speech, Davis Cup Finals, Malaga, November 2024
Reporting draws on the Fundacion Rafa Nadal, Laureus, the Majorca Daily Bulletin, Ultima Hora, the Daily FT, Hola, Euronews, Mallorca.com, the ATP Tour, Tennis.com, Tennis365, Tennis Majors, the Express and Star and sportanddev.
Sources (17)
Daily FT: Rafael Nadal opens academy in secret visit to India · Tennis Majors: September 13, 2010, the day Nadal completed the career Grand Slam · Ultima Hora: Nadal, mas solidario (foundation presented, February 2008) · Fundacion Rafa Nadal: History · Fundacion Rafa Nadal: Who we are · Fundacion Rafa Nadal: The Rafa Nadal and Vicente Ferrer foundations · Laureus: Fundacion Rafa Nadal announced as 2024 Sport for Good Award recipient · sportanddev: Fundacion Rafa Nadal · Majorca Daily Bulletin: First Nadal Foundation centre opens · Tennis365: Rafael Nadal farewell at the Davis Cup · Express and Star: Nadal wants to be remembered as kid that achieved more than he dreamed · Tennis.com: Retired Nadal jokingly withdraws from 2026 Australian Open after hand surgery · Hola: Rafa Nadal and Mery Perello in Mallorca, March 2026 · Fundacion Rafa Nadal: Newsroom · ATP Tour: Nadal back on court for his academy's anniversary · Mallorca.com: Nadal doubles return in Manacor · Euronews: Nadal plays for his academy's 10th anniversary