Love match: Rafa Nadal reveals he is engaged to long-term love Xisca Perello
Just days after his devastating Australian Open singles final lost final, Rafael Nadal has sealed his not-single status.
He’s a man not averse to a marathon match on court, and Rafael Nadal has proven it's the same off court, revealing he’s finally popped the question to his long-term girlfriend, Xisca Perello.
The pair are reportedly engaged after a 14-year partnership, and will make it game, set and love match when they marry on the island of Mallorca later this year.
Nadal, 32, bided his time to ask Perello to marry him, and the pair have also taken their time to reveal the engagement.
According to Spanish magazine Hola!, Nadal proposed to Perello last May during a romantic trip to Rome, but they are only making the news public now.
Perello is rarely seen at grand slam tournament — telling The Telegraph in 2011 Nadal “needs his space when he is competing, and just the idea of me hanging around and waiting on his needs all day tires me out”.
“It would asphyxiate me. And then he would have to be worrying about me … No. If I followed him everywhere, I think there’s a risk we might stop getting along.”
But she made a rare visit to the Australian Open this year, courtside for all Nadal’s matches in her second visit to the Melbourne tournament.
The pair avoid the spotlight as a couple, but quizzed this year by Jim Courier in an awkward on-court interview, Nadal was a little more open.
“As I say to you a couple of years ago in 2017, I think it was the first time she was able to be here, that she had received a wildcard in that moment and now after 14 years together she doesn’t need wildcards,” Nadal said. “She comes wherever she wants.”
Nadal and Perello, whose full name is Maria Francesco Perello, have been dating since 2005, and reportedly have known each other since they were children growing up in Palma de Majora in Spain.
In 2016, Perello, an insurance worker, also became director of the Rafael Nadal Foundation.
Nadal — currently ranked No. 2 in the world lost the Australian Open final on Sunday night to a devastatingly in-form world No.1 Novak Djokovic.
Men of honour – Sinner and Cahill face an uncertain future, no?
Jannik Sinner and his Australian supercoach Darren Cahill, revered globally but under-appreciated locally, were the epitome of gracious victors. But a CAS hearing in April looms.
‘Among most educated’: Tiley rejects Bogan Slam tag
There was no shortage of drama at the AO. TA boss Craig Tiley addresses Alexander Zverev’s heckler, overloaded, raucous crowds and will we see the GOAT of Melbourne Park return?