Rafa Nadal to wed Xisca, the woman he has been with for 14 years
For more than a decade she has been cheering her champion on and after 14 years as his companion, Maria Francesca Perelló – known as Xisca – will now become his wife.
The couple reveal in this week’s Hola magazine that Nadal, 32, proposed on a romantic trip to Rome last May but chose to keep the news private until now.
En ¡HOLA!, Rafa Nadal y Mery se casan. ? ¡Descubre todos los detalles en la revista de esta semana! https://t.co/BcP6F1aa5u pic.twitter.com/dJBdzRuGUX
— Revista ¡HOLA! (@hola) January 30, 2019
The couple, who have been in a committed relationship for 14 years, will marry later this year.
They started dating in 2005 when they were both teenagers after meeting several years before.
Perello, 30, has always shunned the media spotlight although she has been pictured courtside at some of Nadal’s biggest matches.
But she isn't always there. In a 2011 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Perello explained: "He 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."
She works in insurance and is a business graduate but also serves as project director for the Rafa Nadal Foundation, the charity which Nadal launched almost ten years ago.
In an interview with sports newspaper Marca last year, the world number 2 hinted that he wouldn't be ready to start a family until he had retired from tennis.
'I keep my commitment with tennis and my happiness', Nadal told Marca. 'I enjoy both in tennis and outside it. I have a girlfriend too and I am not alone to take decisions.
"Having family? I don't know, things are not easy to be predict. At this age, I thought that I would have already been a former player and that I would have started a family."
READ ALSO: Rafa Nadal donates €1million to help victims of Mallorca floods
Comments
See Also
The couple reveal in this week’s Hola magazine that Nadal, 32, proposed on a romantic trip to Rome last May but chose to keep the news private until now.
En ¡HOLA!, Rafa Nadal y Mery se casan. ? ¡Descubre todos los detalles en la revista de esta semana! https://t.co/BcP6F1aa5u pic.twitter.com/dJBdzRuGUX
— Revista ¡HOLA! (@hola) January 30, 2019
The couple, who have been in a committed relationship for 14 years, will marry later this year.
They started dating in 2005 when they were both teenagers after meeting several years before.
Perello, 30, has always shunned the media spotlight although she has been pictured courtside at some of Nadal’s biggest matches.
But she isn't always there. In a 2011 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Perello explained: "He 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."
She works in insurance and is a business graduate but also serves as project director for the Rafa Nadal Foundation, the charity which Nadal launched almost ten years ago.
In an interview with sports newspaper Marca last year, the world number 2 hinted that he wouldn't be ready to start a family until he had retired from tennis.
'I keep my commitment with tennis and my happiness', Nadal told Marca. 'I enjoy both in tennis and outside it. I have a girlfriend too and I am not alone to take decisions.
"Having family? I don't know, things are not easy to be predict. At this age, I thought that I would have already been a former player and that I would have started a family."
READ ALSO: Rafa Nadal donates €1million to help victims of Mallorca floods
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.