Lack of help for flood victims criticised

Rafael Nadal waded into the fierce political debate in men’s tennis and criticised the ATP for not offering financial support to flood-hit Majorca.

The disaster in October happened in the neighbouring village to Nadal’s home town of Manacor, with 13 people losing their lives, including the cousin of one of his best friends and her son.

Nadal was pictured the following day helping with the clean-up efforts and also opened his tennis academy to victims of the floods before donating €1 million (approximately £900,000) to the cause.

Speaking after a 6-4 6-3 7-5 victory over James Duckworth in the first round, Nadal expressed his disappointment that the players’ organisation had not offered any help.

He said: “If something happens to the country of one of the players that did, in my opinion, important things for this sport and give a lot of things to the sport, I would love to see the organisation that is running the sport supporting that person.

“It didn’t happen in my case. I can’t be happy with that.”

Nadal is also unhappy not to have been consulted about the future of ATP executive chairman and president Chris Kermode, whose position is understood to be under threat from the player council led by Novak Djokovic.

Roger Federer said he would be talking to members of the council along with Nadal and Andy Murray to discuss the situation and voiced broad support for Londoner Kermode.