Childhood rivals Rafa Nadal and Richard Gasquet will reunite.
Richard PagliaroSeptember 24, 20262 minute read
By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, September 24, 2026
Photo credit: Rafa Nadal Academy
Childhood rivals will reunite for the Rafa Nadal Academy Slam next month.
Richard Gasquet has been named as the first member of the team that Rafa Nadal will captain at the Rafa Nadal Academy Slam, the exhibition event to be held on October 3rd in Manacor, Mallorca at 4:30 p.m. local time as part of the Rafa Nadal Academy’s 10th Anniversary celebrations.
Gasquet will be part of Team Rafa, which will take on Team Murray, captained by Andy Murray, in a very special exhibition event that will reconvene some of the sport’s biggest stars to celebrate 10 years of the Academy.
The Gasquet-Nadal reunion puts the Frenchman’s wondrous one-handed backhand on the same squad as Nadal’s twisting topspin forehand, widely regarded as one of the most dangerous forehands in Open Era history.
Both players were recognized as unique talents of their generation from a very young age, and their paths began to cross long before they reached the professional tour.
One of those early encounters came at Les Petits As, where Rafa Nadal and Richard Gasquet faced each other when they were both 12 years old. It was one of the first times their paths crossed on a tennis court, long before they would go on to compete alongside each other for more than two decades at the biggest tournaments in world tennis.
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On Saturday, October 3rd, Nadal and Gasquet will share the court once again, this time as teammates on Team Rafa for the Rafa Nadal Academy Slam.
