Rafael Nadal took just a week off from tennis before beginning his preparations for the 2020 season. Nadal had a lengthy campaign which ended on November 24 when he won the Davis Cup with Spain. The 33-year-old, who got married to Xisca Perello in October and had a brief honeymoon, then spent time at Disneyland Paris with his family.
But the Spaniard has been back at his tennis academy in Mallorca training for the new season.
According to Spanish publication Marca, Nadal has been training with Jaume Munar and Casper Ruud at the academy.
Next week he will fly to Abu Dhabi for the Mubadala World Tennis Championship where he could meet Novak Djokovic in the final.
Nadal will play the winner of Daniil Medvedev and Hyeon Chung on December 20 and then either a third-place playoff or final on December 21.
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Nadal is then expected to fly back home for Christmas with his family before travelling to Perth for the inaugural ATP Cup.
The 19-time Grand Slam champion will play alongside Roberto Bautista Agut and Pablo Carreno Busta in the nine-day tournament which is spread across three cities in Australia and precedes the Australian Open in Melbourne.
2020 could be a significant year for Nadal as he aims to potentially go level and surpass Roger Federer’s record of 20 majors.
And speaking in an interview with Express Sport, David Ferrer said Nadal’s focus was on surpassing Federer in the all-time list.
“He’s a superhero. He’s unbelievable. Every year Rafa surprises me.
“He finished the year playing unbelievable, winning all the Davis Cup matches, winning two matches at the ATP Finals and he finished the year as world No 1.
“Everything he is improving his game. His mentality is different to other players I’ve seen in my life.
“He’s won on every surface. Of course clay courts are his favourite but when you finish as No 1 in the world it is because you’d played all year really good, on all surfaces, not only clay courts. Rafa, Roger and Novak are special tennis players.”
