Rafa Nadal and Mery Perelló families expect their first child
Births The sex and date of birth of Nadal's baby is revealed, who has confirmed the news: "I'm going to be a father"
Properties Rafa Nadal's relaxing summer on "the best yacht in the world", his
When the news of his upcoming paternity broke last Wednesday, Rafa Nadal was arriving at the seat of the Balearic government in Palma under suffocating, almost tropical heat.
He went to a sober
tribute to his career and barely said a few words.
Aware of the moment and the spread of the news, they were almost a plea for him not to be bothered on his vacation: "I appreciate
the way I am treated in Mallorca, always discreetly."
Discretion.
It is not just any word in the Nadal universe.
It is that same word that everyone on the island uses as a mantra when talking about his wife, María Francisca Perelló (Manacor, 1988).
Known as
María Francisca in Manacor,
Mery for her personal environment.
Discreet" or, indistinctly, "simple and normal",
are the adjectives most used to describe the tennis player's wife,
who in the fall expects to give birth to their first child, a boy. As revealed by the newspaper
Última Hora
de Majorca.
Mery Perelló, wife of Rafa Nadal pregnant with her first childGTRES
The daughter of a
Manacor City Council official and a local builder,
she comes from a well-liked middle-class family in the town, now logically overshadowed by the powerful Nadal saga.
"She is a nice and pleasant girl, educated although reserved, introverted,"
a well-known businessman from the area, used to treating them during their vacations, explains to LOC.
These are days in which Nadal (Rafel in Manacor, Rafa for the rest of the world)
plays golf, sails, fishes or walks through the Sierra de Llevant
, an area of mountains and virgin coves about twenty kilometers from his hometown.
In these plans,
he is usually always with his wife and his small group of lifelong friends
, some of them from his beginnings in the world of tennis, when he was just a child.
Rafa Nadal at an event of his tennis schoolGTRES
Rafa and Mery take advantage of those days to try to live as if they were just another Majorcan couple, although it is difficult to blend
in when you have a front-line mansion project
, a robust financial empire (Forbes calculated in 2021 the athlete's earnings derived
solely from tennis in 125 million dollars
) and a yacht of more than 5 million euros moored near the viewpoint of his house.
About to turn 34 on July 7
, María Francisca Perelló has been the tennis player's partner for 17 years
.
They were married in October 2019 in La Fortaleza, a spectacular fortified villa on a peninsula in the Bay of Pollença, a summer resort for Madrid's jet set.
Rafa had asked her to marry him in Rome.
The King Emeritus, Rafa's good friend, attended the wedding.
Mery Perelló with her sister-in-law, María Isabel NadalGTRES
Rafa and María Francisca have known each other since school at the Pureza de María school in Manacor, where
she coincided with the athlete's sister,
María Isabel Nadal
.
He, three years older, also went to class there for a few years.
But the relationship was forged some time later,
at the end of adolescence, between Manacor and Porto Cristo
, the place where the Nadals spend a good part of the year.
It is the summer resort of the manacorins and a seaport for small boats, among which
Rafa's catamaran stands out,
called Great White, the great white,
which could be a nod to its tennis shark voracity.
There, in a privileged vantage point next to the natural cove, the couple bought
a house from an important local family, the Serveras,
owners of the nearby and majestic Cuevas del Drach.
The purchase figure
was around 4 million euros, according to local media
.
They demolished a good part of the old buildings, sticking to what was permitted, and their new home is being built there, on a plot
of more than 7,000 square meters with direct access to the sea.
Rafa Nadal with his sister, María Isabel and his wife, Xisca Perelló, in ParisGTRES
Like any girl in her environment
, Mery Perelló studied at the public university of the Balearic Islands
, the UIB.
She studied Business Administration and Management and did an internship at Endesa.
She also has
a postgraduate degree in NGO management from
the ESADE business school.
She also
worked at the IMG sporting events organization company
and in two Mapfre departments.
Since 2012 , she has headed the
Rafa Nadal Foundation
, where she has held the position of project director and general director since 2019, with her mother-in-law, Ana María Parera, as president.
The Foundation develops social integration projects in Spain and in other countries, such
as in India, where it has a center in Anantapur
where it works with children from the region, helping the most disadvantaged.
The wife of the most successful tennis player in history
is also a sports fan, but not at a competitive level.
She plays tennis and has participated in charity races.
Unlike other women of elite athletes,
she maintains a low profile and does not expose herself on networks
or speak directly with the media, a reservation very typical of the discreet Majorcan character, with which the people of the island fully identify.
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