Uncyclopedia ...

We all know about Wikipedia, right?? The on-line encyclopedia that is astounding in the information that it brings you. Well Uncyclopedia is a skit on it, but very, very funny. I found it on Twitter yesterday and nearly choked on my morning tea reading it.

Here's its entry of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

Of course our lovely Rafa makes an entry, but like most things, they are heinously governed by rabid, lunatic, female fans so Rafa gets off lightly. Its still amusing though and I love this quote ...

For tennis players there is a surface that strikes fear into the heart. A surface that saps the energy and weakens both body and mind. A surface that can turn even the mightiest bull of a player into a cow on ice. This is clay. However, Rafael Nadal is one bull that refuses to let the surface make him slip up. When he takes to the red sand, the Spanish bull becomes a camel, gliding across the tennis desert. His two magnificent humps contain limitless reserves of topspin, ready for dispatch against an unsuspecting opponent. His four strong hooves keep him striding out long after his opponents have been sucked into the sand. His long, luxuriously thick eyelashes protect him from the oppressive dust and dirt that seeps into every pore and penetrates the soul of a lesser man. The Arabic man on his back guides him around the court, barking out orders in Farsi to hit more drop shots. "ﻁﻭﻘﺴ ‘ﺏﻭﺭﺸﻤ ﺱﻻﻴ!" he screams. No other tennis player carves out so many winning points on the dust. No other tennis player lasts as long on the court. No other tennis player is a camel.

Take some time to read, and enjoy ... Hehe.

Vote for Rafa!!

Well ... award season is soon to be on us, and we have the opportunity to vote for the Fans' Favourite award. So lets vote for Rafa!!

You can do this by going to the ATP website here. Now for me, it took me to Facebook in order to vote (what's going on there?), but anyway, I cast my vote for our lovely Rafa. Wouldn't it be great if he could win this, so lets help him to do so. ;)

EDIT - For those of you who don't have a Facebook account, you can still vote for Rafa on the Chinese version of the ATP website here. Every vote counts!! Rafa Needs You!

Rafa with the artist Joan Fiera Ferrari ...

It was revealed last week that the artist Joan Fiera Ferrari has done a portrait of lovely Xisca in his own inimitable style and we were given a glimpse in the subsequent article of the painting he'd done previously with Rafa.

But here's Rafa with the artist and his own picture. Although shall we say that its probably not been done recently. ;)

FerWatch ...

So what's our lovely Fernando been up to?? Well, he's been in Budapest ...

... doing a bit of dancing.



... doing an impression of Maria Sharapova.



... and WHOT is THIS, Fer??

Doing an impression of ... Rafa??

FeliWatch ...

Part Deux ... I have towel envy.

FeliWatch ...

Firstly, how envious am I of the lovely blue skies and sunshine of Valencia, but it seems that Feli, lovely JCF and little Daveed turned up to a promotion event today for Corona ... or Coronita as its called in Spain.

Feli hands over a cheque for €2,000 from him to JCF's foundation ...


"Remember JCF ... its not all to be spent on cervezas. You know how Rafa tells us to drink responsibly ... jajajajaja ... "


Blimey ... not only do I look like Jesus, but I walk on water too!!

I'm going to serve and hit that 4th beer bottle (the kind of serving that Fer will be up to in the DC, jaja) ...

I stick out my left arm ... and make the ball levitate ...


Feli leans over to study the chest of the lady interviewer ...


Hands up who can "Find Feli ..."


Hmm, hmmm ... yoo-hoo ... bye bye my darleenks ...

The morning after the night before ...

See what drinking responsibly does for you. They won!!

My kind of night out ...

Yes! Finished wine bottles all over the place ... no-one behaving responsibly. *whistle* Rafa has informed us via Facebook that his mates are going to take on Banesto's mates at golf tomorrow.

And the [responsible] boozy dinner was to help discuss strategy.

Hehe ... have fun, Rafa!!

Rafa's bringing sexy black ...

Yes! Yes! Yes! Rafa all in black for the WTF. Soxy!

Well, lets face it gang. He can't look any worse than that cobbled together kit from last year where it looked like his was just wearing the end of season lines from Nike. Hehe.

He won the AO in black, the USO in black ... the WTF?? Go Rafa!!

Xisca captured in oils ...

Earlier in the week I did a post about Rafa's girls and within the article detailed, it was revealed that Xisca has now moved to London. It also described how she'd recently sat for a portrait by the painter, Joan Riera Ferrari, and the product of his work is shown above.

In this article which talks about Xisca's picture, Ferrari describes how he's pleased with the end product.

"Xisca is lovely, quiet, nice and so much more beautiful than she appears in the press. Rafa adores her. No wonder, they have had many years together and he has known her since she was 14". Riera admits that he was so delighted with the experience that he would not painting her "a thousand times."

The painting will be part of Ferrari's next exhibition and it is said that Xisca will be travelling to Mallorca this weekend to see it ... and Rafa! ;)

Thoughtful, charming, lovely Rafa ...

I don't know the channel and I don't know the programme, but on Canal Plus on a programme called Tiebreak, a chap called Roberto Carretero visits Carlos Costa at IMG. Its interesting to be taken around the offices, and of course, there is much to do with Rafa contained therein.

But what really touched at my heartstrings, was a personal note written to Carlos by Rafa following his tumultuous 2010 season. A note filled with heartfelt feelings and sent with impeccable manners to show appreciation to a member of his team. Rafa is awesome ...

The vid. clip and screen caps are brought to us by Ines, the translation by Malmedia, and all posted on VB. Here are the pictures ...

And here is the translation ...

Carlos, many years have passed since we started and although we had some difficult moments, all were incredible; thank you so much for everything you do for me professionally and especially personally; I sure thought it would be impossible to accomplish all that. I'd like you to know that for me, all the victories are as yours as they are mine.

Thank you so much.

December 2010

R. Nadal

Here's the video ...

More of the Armani video ...

Well we've seen the making of the video, and below is ... more making of the video ...



(Credit to Ines)

And now Armani have released the full video itself, and its still a lovely watch ...

Bringing sexy back ...

Stare at it and and weep, readers ...

The sleeveless t-shirt.

I don't think there will be anything more iconic about Rafa than that. The one piece of clothing that set thousands of female hearts swooning and spawned an army of embittered, male hatahs.

Toronto, circa 2008 I think is that particular specimen. But before we get too excited, they've obviously just been dug out of the wash for training. Rafa is practising hard for the end of the season with Paris as his next destination and the Davis Cup is described as his goal. Here's IB3 footage of the session ... hold onto your piratas, ladies. ;)

And why not see the shirt in full action, eh, complete with the RafaRoar !!!

Oh-My-God ...

This boy is KILLING me!!!

Credit to RafaelNadalFC

I like-a you, Rafa ...

LOVING Rafa in this new advert for Kia. *thud*

Credit RafaelNadalFC for the pictures

Rafa hits his home gym ...

Rafa's latest Facebook entry quotes him as saying;-

"Continuing the practice!! We want to start the last matches of the year!! ;) "

No chance of him not going to Paris then ...

Rafa's Saturday night out ...

Whilst Feli, Tommy, Marcel et al headed off to the Nou Camp for a Saturday night out after the tribute event in Barcelona on Saturday, Rafa obviously hot-footed it back to Mallorca. Whilst the other boys were watching TotalFootball, Rafa went along to support a local team, and then followed it up by a bop a Bauxa.

Just like any other local lads' night out, eh??

FeliWatch ...

One, two, three, four, five, six ...

... seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, TWENTY!

Yep ... congratulations to Feli who today made it to the Top 20 on the ATP rankings list by matching his first appearance at that position last held in 2005. Great effort, Feli ... keep it going.

EDIT - RFET tweeted and put it on Facebook that Feli had reached No. 20 for the first time in his career. Cue a tweet back from Feli to a contact at RFET to remind them that he reached No. 20 back in 2005. Not that he's bothered or anything ... hehe.

Back to practice after "crazy week" ...

Rafa made an entry on his Facebook today:-

After a crazy week I return to the practice at Manacor with Frederico F. Silva, a portuguese 16 years old! :)

A great opportunity for the youngster ... and maybe we got it first with the Next Best Thing. ;)

Rafa's girls ...

El Pais brought an article on Xisca this weekend and here's the link. You'll have to do a mangle to try and get the gist in English, but to be honest, its not really anything we haven't heard before. There is a piece of new news though that I haven't come across before and that is that Xisca is now in London for a year to work in business management and to help with her English. The down-side is that she'll probably see even less of Rafa now. Awww ... By the way, I know all the stuff about her name but somehow, I like Xisca and it sticks with me, so I'll continue with that if you don't mind. It feels funny to call her "Mary" ...

Rafa's sister was also in the crowd at the Andreu Gimeno event in Barcelona at the weekend, accompanied by her boyfriend. Maribel is studying physical eduction at university in Barcelona, so it would have been nice for the Nadal siblings to have an opportunity for a catch up.

Credit for the screen caps goes to Meriko from VB.

The family Nadal ...

Can you guess who they all are??

Well, to be honest if you look closely you can tell. Toni to the far left, Sebastian to the far right, Rafael in the middle and Rafa's paternal grandparents holding the twins, Miguel-Angel and Marilen.

Awwww ...

A hysterical junior Rafafan has to be taken away kicking and screaming ...

I've seen Rafan similarly affected ...

Andreu Gimeno tribute ...

The current members of the Armada turned out in a tribute to an old boy of their own, Andreu Gimeno. Gimeno won the French Open back in 1972, but the purpose of the tribute today was because he's fallen a bit on hard times and the exho was by way of a testimonial.

The poor guy lost his daughter to cancer 3 years ago but equally, he's lost his money in failed real estate and is a victim of shares losses as the Spanish economy goes into free-fall ... tell me about it, I work with this every single day in my career.

I think the thing that touched me the most though today was finding out something I didn't know before. When Rafa sat on his chair after becoming the Australian Open champion back in 2009, and Federer did his embarrassing weep like a baby routine and told the world it was killing him ... you know, back in those days when Rafa was barely able to celebrate any of his Slam victories because he seemed always to be "taking something away from Federer" as he went on his megalomaniac pursuit of beating Sampras's Slam record. Well ... whilst all that drama was unfolding before him and Rafa sat quietly on his chair, Andreu Gimeno went to him, and cuddled him and held him like a kindly old Grandpa. Malmeda and serene from VB brought the story and the vid clip to us. Yep ... the vid clip is rather cheesy, but its still emotional.

The event was staged like some sort of round robin/team thing with Rafa and Daveed ending up as the two finalists. Feli, Tommy, Marcel Granollers were in attendance, but Fer was missing as his father was having an operation. Hope all is well there, Fer.

Although the crowd was small, it seemed like it was a lovely, smiley and enjoyable event. Here's a link to some of the video action from today.

Oh wow ...

... makes me want to go now.

The stadium in Seville where the Davis Cup final will be played.

Tax ...

Righto ... I made the post last week of Rafa's decision not to go to Queen's next year as he's accepted an invitation to Halle. And when asked about it, Rafa replied with honesty that as his 4-year contract with Queens was over and due to the archaic and unfair tax laws in the UK (my words ... certainly NOT his), he's off to Germany next year. Shame for us in the UK, definitely, but when you have the situation properly explained to you ... you can understand why he's done it.

Its a pity that when the likes of Simon Reed post an article on EuroSport supporting him, that he doesn't do the job properly and explain it. And I'm rather alarmed that articles such as his and plenty of others I've seen over the past week are on meltdown giving our Rafa a hard time. Now I know tax is one of the most boring things on the planet, but I'm going to continue to write about it.

Firstly, in the '90s when I had all sorts of confidence issues, I went on a quite wonderful course to help me - it was rather too la-la in parts and a bit like Oprah on acid, but when you spend your life being a people pleaser and saying that "I have to ..." to the detriment of yourself and your soul and all that good stuff, well the stand out message that the course delivered was ...

"There are only two things that you HAVE to do in life. The first is to die ... and the second ... is to pay tax."

In other words, apart from those two things, you have a choice. Now its been Rafa's choice to patronise Queen's for his 4 year contract and other than in 2009 because of injury, its been fabulous for us fans to see him there. But its his choice now not to come ... and the main reason is because of tax. (Did you see what I did there ;) )

Now then. Ellie (who I met in Cordoba) has posted a fantastic explanation of all of this on VB and she has given permission on the site that we can use her rationale to explain, so as its opened up my eyes ... here it is for you.

Simply put. You work for Company A in the UK and pay taxes to the UK Government on your salary earned. But you also have a second income stream as you have a holiday home in France that you let out and it generates you €10,000 euros. You pay tax in France on your €10,000, but because of the UK/French tax treaty, you are granted relief from also paying tax to the UK on this second income.

However, your company sends you to work in the US for 4 weeks. But whilst you are there, the US government taxes you on the second income income in France even though you're paying tax to the French government. You are not allowed to claim relief on this US charged tax because you are a citizen of neither country. Now then ... if that were the case, wouldn't you consider it reasonable to ask your company NOT to send you to the US as you effectively lose money for going there?

If Rafa pays taxes on - lets face it - 50% of his prize money earned in the UK, and he pays taxes on his endorsements and sponsorships in the appropriate countries worldwide where they are based, and his pays taxes in Spain on his own fortune, why the bloody hell should he also be liable for tax on his second income stream of endorsements whilst in the UK just because he came over here to play tennis? Especially so when that tournament is a paltry 250 series event and is not mandatory??

And of course ... the media slate him. And even those that so-called support him don't explain it properly. What about the media making a nice song and dance about those players that go and live in tax havens to escape paying it on their income in the first place. Old smugly himself, Federer, considers himself "lucky" that he is Swiss and therefore escapes it. But what about the majority of the French players that live in Switzerland to avoid tax? Which leads me onto him - The Prince of Darkness - you know, the proud Serb that beats his chest and pulls on his Serbia t-shirt upon victory in Madrid and his parents sit in the stands in their cheap Serbian caps and scarves. The man doesn't even live there. He's a citizen of Monaco thereby avoids paying tax to the Serbian government which goes some way to aiding the people that he is soooooo proud to be one of. Two-faced twonk.

Write an article about all of that on the subject of tax, media.

Rafa's parents are reconciled ...

Its been reported in MallorcaDiario that Rafa's parents have been reconciled. Now, I cannot see this Mallorca publication printing this if it were not true. So good for them, and I'm happy for the family.

Rumours of a reconciliation were rife at Wimbledon, and during the first week, I don't think I've seen Rafa happier all year. And the rumours were certainly fuelled when they were invited to watch Rafa from the Royal Box when he took his proud walk onto Centre Court to open the 2011 Championships as the defending champion. *wipes tear*. But since then ... nada.

It kind of makes me wonder just how much all of this going on in the background could, just maybe, have affected Rafa's mojo this year. I mean ... we know what it did to him in 2009. I hope if they've made this decision then its the right thing for them. And as a family and for Rafa ... lets hope this is closure and 2012 is a time for all of them to move on.

Videos from the golf ...

FORE!! Rafa teeing off ...

... and lots more boring golf, made better with lots of soxy Rafa thrown in ...

Pro-Am Castello Masters ...

Oh God ... what is wrong with me? *thud* I am panting over Rafa ... IN HIS GOLF KIT??!!!??!!!

I mean ... the man makes a polo neck soxy ... its just his slimness, the way sportsmen just stand so straight and tall. God ... Armani. Keep it. I could snog his face off in this kit. *gone*

Don't even go there with that pose, Rafa ... *gulp*

Golf just got sexy ...

Wonder why?? *whistle*

Golfing Rafa ...

On Thursday, Rafa is off to partner Spanish golfer, Sergio Garcia, in a pro-am tournament at the Castello Masters.

"It's kind of an anniversary thing as this will be the third year Rafa and I have played the pro-am here together," said Garcia.

"We won the first year we played together. He likes his golf very much and I like all sports including tennis, and I like watching him play.

"So it's a great way to start what will hopefully be a great week."

Also playing will be Rafa's uncle - no, not him ... he has no time for golf but should be studying tennis tactics instead - no, I mean one of the other uncles, soxy Miguel-Angel. Juan Carlo Ferrero is also on the list of players.

A few of my :squeezes: there then. Maybe golf isn't so boring after all ... ;)

Here's Sergio saying a few words on the event ...

Back home ...

Rafa's back home in Mallorca and can be seen here in a video clip talking largely about FC Inter Mallorca for whom he has "signed" recently.

He's gone on to explain that its his friends who have created this team, but he won't be playing football - he has enough with tennis - but he will help them the best he can and if some day he feels like training with them then he will, but there'll be no match.

Phew!

Anyhow ... its off to golf tomorrow.

Rafa's stop off ...

Rafa announced on Facebook that on the way home from Shanghai, they decided to have a few days R&R in Doha, Qatar. Great stuff, I thought.

Although Rafa being Rafa ... well, he of course did some work, that being a stop off at Aljazeera sports channel to film some sort of promo.

Put your feet up properly, honey ...