“Guys, I’m playing against Nadal! WTF!” wrote 16-year-old Darwin Blanch on Snapchat. Don’t worry if you don’t know who the guy is who was born on September 28, 2008 in America to a Spanish father and a Puerto Rican mother.
Darwin will play only the second ATP match in his career today at around 5 pm in Madrid. He made his debut recently, in Miami, where he was defeated by Tomas Mahac. Now he is playing with one of the greatest of all time and has the opportunity to become the man who is the retired Nadal. The Spanish veteran announced that the Masters in the Spanish capital will probably be his last tournament in which he will play.
When Blanch was born, Rafa had already won three Roland Garros. On his first birthday, Nadal ascended the tennis throne. The match in Madrid will be a duel with the biggest age difference between two tennis players in the history of the Masters – 21 years and 117 days, or 7,787 days!
“This is a dream. I never thought I would play with Nadal. I don’t know how long he has left, but it’s an honor to play against a player who has given so much to our sport. This is all crazy! I watched him on TV as a kid At my age, I only think about doing my best and enjoying every moment, because this is an experience I will remember for the rest of my life,” said Darwin, quoted by “Marka”.
The American teenager develops his skills at the Juan Carlos Ferrer Academy where he lives and when he is not competing. His father, Ernesto, a Spaniard, often changed his place of residence because of his work, and Darwin moved a lot after his parents’ divorce.
Rafael Nadal / Photo: PAU BARRENA / AFP / Profimedia
“I was born in Boka. However, a week after I was born, we were already living in Thailand. My father went there for work. I trained in Thailand until I was eight years old. We had a tennis court in the yard and I was constantly training with my brothers. I had a coach who came from Argentina. In the end, we all moved to Argentina and I trained there for four years. Then I came back to America, and in recent years I’ve been working with Juan Carlos Ferrer. I had a crazy childhood,” he says Blanche.
Darwin’s stepmother is Chinese, so the 16-year-old tennis player, in addition to English, also speaks Spanish, Chinese and Thai perfectly. His older brothers Ulysses (age 26) and Dali (age 21) are also tennis players, while sister Krystal plays tennis in college. It is interesting that Darwin trained for a short time at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Manorca, and last year he was a junior semi-finalist at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Young Darwin is also praised by Carlos Alcaraz.
“I had the opportunity to train with Darwin and he plays very well for his age. Now I told him to relax and enjoy himself. I remember the first time I played with Rafa in 2021. I learned a lot from that match,” Alcaraz advised Rafa’s rival today. .
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