Rafael Nadal was pictured playing tennis with Jude Bellingham, Thibaut Courtois and Jannik Sinner this week as the Madrid Open got underway.
However, their knock-up was no normal collaboration, actually taking place on courts put inside a football stadium.
The Santiago Bernabeu, which completed its overwhelming redevelopment in 2024, is a remarkable feat of engineering that has allowed it to become far more than just football-specific.
Its ability to retract the pitch has afforded opportunities like the one that the Madrid Open is taking, to place tennis courts where Bellingham and Courtois would normally be playing their football.
Rafael Nadal, as a lifelong Real Madrid fan, likely could not have believed such a crossover would be possible. He was unsurprisingly enthusiastic about the combination.
Rafael Nadal discusses the Santiago Bernabeu tennis courts after playing with Jannik Sinner
Speaking to Eurosport after he had played with the current world number one, Sinner, as well as Bellingham and Courtois, he was asked for his thoughts on the initiative.
Nadal was succinct in his assessment, simply stating: “Spectacular.”
What would have happened if Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner played at the same time as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal?
He would add: “Little more can be asked for. It is also true that when this unique stage was made, it was done thinking that things like these could happen. Being able to play tennis in this place is something unique, and that remains for history. For everyone, coming to one of the most special places in the world of sports is impressive.”
Nadal has been pictured coaching Iga Swiatek lately, and rushing from his academy to Madrid, it’s no surprise that the Polish star claimed that he seems busier now than when he was a player.
Why has the Madrid Open put tennis courts in the Santiago Bernabeu?
The Madrid Open has operated for years without the need for an 83,000-seater football stadium, so it has led many to question why the event has incorporated it at the 2026 event.
And, whilst it obviously offers more space and more courts, more than anything, it seems to have been done to show off what the arena, and the city of Madrid, is capable of.
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One line from the Madrid Open’s press release was particularly interesting, as it reads: “The Mutua Madrid Open’s arrival at the Bernabeu reaffirms Madrid’s capacity to host innovative initiatives with global reach, bringing together two great symbols of the city.”
More importantly, they also add: “The presence of a clay court in the Bernabeu not only meets an operational need for players, who will have a new training space fully integrated into the tournament dynamic, but also projects a powerful image of Madrid as a capital capable of reinventing its major sporting venues and connecting them with one another.”
