Silly question, but how do you find your court when there are 44? I read the DH article (the Belgian daily La Dernière Heure) on the 7.32 train, and I was stuck on that number until Ottignies.
Facts first. The Rafa Nadal Academy, in Manacor, on Majorca, has 44 tennis courts and 16 padel courts. The latest expansion dates from 2024. About 500 people gravitate around it, and only one Belgian: Tanguy Van Mechelen, a 49-year-old from Antwerp. He came for a week with his family in 2019, for a training camp. In 2022 he was hired to handle admissions for student athletes. Today he runs commercial and international development for the tennis programmes.
According to him, about 160 young people aged 11 to 18 live at the boarding school. They attend the academy’s international school. So: lessons, then tennis, across 44 courts. At the newsroom we have one meeting room, and we fight over it.
There is also a museum. 100,000 visitors a year. I did the division: roughly 274 a day, Sundays included. More visitors than players. I wonder whether visitors are allowed to hit a ball on one of the courts. And who decided which one gets to be number 44? I checked, and actually the article doesn’t say.
He explained that the method doesn’t stay in Majorca: “We don’t just lend our name. We travel with our teams and train people on site. Whether you’re in Mexico or Greece, you’ll get the same programme as in Majorca.” The same programme everywhere. I checked, and actually the article doesn’t say whether there are 44 courts in Mexico too.
“44 courts. At our club we have four, and we still fight over court 1 every Sunday. Trust me, numbers don’t solve anything.”
Rafael Nadal lives 15 minutes away. The day-to-day running is left to his sister Maribel and Javier Perelló. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
