King of Spain set for Queen’s
Relaxed tax rules enticed Nadal to play Queen’s
RAFAEL NADAL is all smiles as he treats schoolchildren to a surprise coaching session in west London yesterday. Spain’s king of clay will hope for more success on the grass courts of Queen’s, starting today.
RAfAeL NAdAL is back at London’s Queen’s Club and aiming to bank as much grass court expertise as money before the end of the week.
the Spaniard admitted yesterday that he had stayed away for four years due to harsh tax laws on overseas stars. While these still work against him, returning to the Aegon Championships is no longer too punitive.
He plays Alexandr dolgopolov today and is part of a bumper programme that sees top seed Andy murray take his bow against taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu and roland Garros champion Stan Wawrinka take on Australia’s Nick Kyrgios.
Nadal has done best at Wimbledon when preparing here and that, combined with George osborne’ss 2012 relaxation of complex plex levies on global earnrnings, swayed him.
‘I think it’ s changed a little, it’s still not ideal but better than a few years ago. I had to stop playing here for a while,’ he said.
After a difficult few ew months which culmilminated in him losingng his french open crown, Nadal feels this is a new beginning after winning in Stuttgart on Sunday. ‘the second part of the season started for me last week and I have the motivation to play well,’ he said.
He also stated that qualifying for the Barclays AtP World finals at the o2 Arena in November is his main goal, a pretty modest one by his standards.
the tax situation could be one that crops up for him again if he enjoys a successful conclusion to his career, as it is understood that the AtP are close to sealing a deal to keep the hugely successful year finale in London for an extra two years.
At the moment the contract will run out after this year’s event but this is now likely to be extended to 2018.
that would approximately see out the career of murray at the highest level and keep the revenue flowing into tour coffers from an event that always attracts more than 250,000 spectators.
other cities, including Beijing, are said to have shown strong interest but for now the dual attraction of a home represenrepresentative and a capticaptive audience are expexpected to hold swsway. Nadal’s current ranking means he is setting his sights lower than before, and trying nnot even to focus oon winning Grand SSlams. AAsked about the prosprospect of adding to his tallyta he replied: ‘I don’t know and I don’t care much now. my main goal is to finish the season healthy and then have the chance to start 2016 stronger.
‘Winning Grand Slams or not, I won enough in my career, 14 is enough. I am No 10 in the world and I’ve only played six of the last twelve months. If I’m able to be No 10 playing that bad I am sure I will be higher if I play that little bit better.’
murray finds himself in the usual position of being the only British singles player remaining in double quick time after James Ward went out in the first round yesterday evening. the British No 2 made a promising start against huge-serving Canadian milos raonic before going down 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 to the world No 8.
Ward was well worth the first set and could have created two break points at 1-1 in the second had he put away a regulation backhand. Against someone ranked 100 places higher it was a creditable effort.
But he is still short of any momentum and he is due to play as Britain’s second singles player in next month’s davis Cup quarter- final versus france. one potentially significant development in that encounter is that france’s top doubles player, Julien Benneteau, is out of Wimbledon with an injury.
Ward was positive after his defeat, saying: ‘I think I acquitted myself well playing against the third seed inside the world top 10, I don’t think it’s such a bad effort.
‘I’m sure plenty of other guys he would just turn over in two sets. His serve is an absolute rocket.’
HE may have dropped to his lowest world ranking in a decade, but Rafael Nadal still has plenty up his sleeve as Wimbledon approaches.
Not least of which is an eye-catching £500,000 watch, which the tennis ace is pictured wearing yesterday on the first day of the Queen’s Club tournament in London. The 29-year-old Spaniard sported his new RM 27- 02 timepiece by Swiss luxury brand Richard Mille – specially designed to withstand 5,000 Gs of G-force – as he hurled himself around the court. Fittingly, the watch is also a ‘tourbillon’ – French for whirlwind – a term used to describe a complex feature that increases accuracy.
Nadal, who is worth an estimated £21million, has been regularly spotted in Richard Mille watches since 2010, when he and the firm struck a lucrative sponsorship deal. The fourteen-time Grand Slam winner recently dropped to tenth in the world ranking, his lowest place since he was 11th as a teenager in April 2005.