Retired 14-time champion Rafael Nadal will receive a tribute at the French Open on Court Philippe-Chatrier on May 25, the tournament\u2019s opening day.<\/p>\n
\u201cRafa has left his mark on the history of the French Open in so many ways, that\u2019s why a tribute ceremony will be held in his honor,\u201d French Open director Am\u00e9lie Mauresmo said on Thursday. \u201cWe want the tribute to be special, exceptional. We want it to be a surprise for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam champion who retired in November, already has a statue rising in the alleys of the clay court Grand Slam. He will also feature in an exhibition in the tournament museum and lend his voice to the official French Open trailer, The Associated Press said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to do the tribute last year, to be transparent, but he refused at the time,\u201d Mauresmo said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t sure that it was his last Roland Garros. Now that he is retired, he is happy to receive it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nadal holds the record for the most French Open titles with 14. His last appearance at the tournament was in 2024 when he lost to Alexander Zverev in the first round.<\/p>\n
\u201cRafael Nadal and Roland Garros are inseparable. We have a strong history together,\u201d said Gilles Moretton, president of the French Tennis Federation. \u201cAm\u00e9lie and I went to see him not long ago because we wanted to do something important for him. We still had some frustration from last year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Retired 14-time champion Rafael Nadal will receive a tribute at the French Open on Court Philippe-Chatrier on May 25, the tournament\u2019s opening day. \u201cRafa has left his mark on the history of the French Open in so many ways, that\u2019s why a tribute ceremony will be held in his honor,\u201d French Open director Am\u00e9lie Mauresmo …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46609,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46608\/revisions\/46609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}