Rafa Nadal Academy

And that's a nice story.

I knew about her since she was, I believe, 11 or 12 because she went to the Rafa Nadal Academy and worked with a couple of Portuguese coaches.

So that was nice as well.

But yeah, there is a lot of interest, I think, on the WTA side.

And yeah, just seize those opportunities when they came.

Did you see that little bit of content that came out of Murray's trip to the Nadal Academy where someone in Nadal's team was showing Murray around the museum and he says, just so you know, we have a big three room, but not a big four room.

And Rafa's always felt bad about that.

And Murray's like, it's fine.

For the first time in many months, I picked up a racket and played again.

I've been lucky enough to know Alex since she began her journey at Rafa Nadal Academy and have closely followed her tremendous career.

At just nineteen, Alex built-- beat three-time Grand Slam champion players at the twenty twenty-five Miami Open.

This year she won the WTA Five Hundred tournament, becoming the first player from the Philippines to break into the world's top twenty, and she still has plenty of room to grow.

Dropping down to the ITF circuit, big news in Indian tennis this week.

17-year-old Maya Rajeshwaran, uh, Nadal Academy trainee, she's won her first title in Lagos.

Yeah, um, Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi, that's her full name, but I think commonly just known as Maya Rajeshwaran.

She, yeah, won the title in Lagos in, in, in Portugal, a W35.

And then ended up making the Wimbledon final.

What did he do after that? He went to the Rafa Nadal Academy and trained hard in the middle of the summer.

And I thought that he was going to burn out from all this training and non-stop play.

But he ends up playing a couple of poor tournaments prior to the US Open.

And he's good friends with Alex Yala, too, right?

Uh, yeah, I mean, they both came through the Rafa Nadal Academy, so they know each other pretty well.

They're familiar.

Yeah.

Next up, we have a question from Peter, who wrote in.

He said, "Rafa just got back on court to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Rafa Nadal Academy, teaming up with Carlos Moya, David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet, against Andy Murray [laughs], Marat Safin, Dominik Hrbaty, and Fabio Fognini in a doubles matchup." I think it was, like, 10-point or seven-point tiebreak, you know, win by two.

My question, or Peter's question would be, "If you were to do an event and it was dingles, who would you invite, and who would be the teams? Who would be the most fun dingles matchups?"

Oh.

She's only 21 years old, and already the first Filipino to ever win a WTA tour title.

Alex grew up in the Philippines, learning the game from her grandfather, before moving to Spain at 13 years old on scholarship to the Rafa Nadal Academy.

Today, we're getting into what it's really like to be in the middle of a breakout moment, how she's handling all the sudden attention, the pressure, and what it feels like when a whole nation starts treating your matches like national holidays.

I'm Maria Sharapova, and this is Pretty Tough.

Thanks.

Thanks.

At 13 years old, you get a scholarship offer from the Rafa Nadal Academy, and you move to Mallorca.

Oh, yes.

He's on

the weekend at the Rafa Nadal Academy.

It's celebrating 10 year anniversary of the Academy.

And we had Team Rafa against Team Andy Murray.