Rafael Nadal on hotels and life after tennis

Rafael Nadal says he spent most of his tennis career living outside of hotels.

“That’s what I’ve done for half of my life, and I know what I like best,” he told CNBC. So when he opened his, he felt natural.

The 22-time Grand Slam winner, who retired from competitive tennis in November 2024, recently opened his fourth hotel in the Canary Islands in Fuerteventura under his hotel brand Zel Hotels, which was established in 2022 in partnership with Meliá Hotels International.

The brand opened its first hotel, ZEL Mallorca, in 2023. Hotels in Costa Brava in Spain and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic followed.

“I’m not the type of person who likes to wake up in the morning and not know what to do, and my goal was to keep going,” Nadal told Tania Bryer on “CNBC Meets,” which airs later this week.

“The same way I built a legacy in court, now is the time to build a legacy outside of court.”

Mallorca-born Nadal added that people have started to spend more on experiences, making hospitality a growing area to invest in.

But he said building a product is “challenging at first,” as the space is very competitive.

Nadal, who won a record 14 French Open awards and two Olympic gold medals, said that sports taught him “to endure frustration, you learn to work as a team, you learn to accept that sometimes you lose, you need to manage the victory, because it doesn’t matter if you won, you have to play the next day.”

Nadal described how he spent a year recovering from hip surgery in 2023, not knowing he would have to retire, which he eventually did.

“It wasn’t easy, but when I knew it was over for me, it was a change in my life after doing almost the same thing all my life, but I was prepared, and I was ready to have the next chapter in my life.

Several top tennis players, including Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, ended their boycott of the prize money last week, after talks with the All England Club, the organizers of Wimbledon.

Wimbledon increased its prize money by 20% this year to £64.2 million ($85 million), its biggest annual increase ever. The players wanted a prize fund of around £71 million, equivalent to around 16% of tournament revenue. Broadly, the top players have pushed for the Grand Slams to pay players 22% of revenue by 2030.

Nadal said he saw both points but urged the players to understand that, when they come to play, tournament organizers “need to invest a whole year in preparation for that week, or those two weeks.”

“If you see how much the players were earning 15 years ago, and the money they are getting today, you can see that the average increase is higher than the average for any job in the world,” he said.

Nadal added that players need to reach a definitive agreement with the Grand Slams.

“Get an agreement with that, and stay on that, and the Grand Slams have committed that they should increase the prize money by a percentage per year, fair to the players, fair to the tournament… they signed this agreement for 10 years, so we have 10 years of calm,” he added.

Nadal’s business interests include hospitality, education, and sports, with most of his investments held through his family-owned company, Aspemir.

Before Zel Hotels, Nadal opened the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca in 2016 for high-level tennis training, which has now grown into an international network of tennis centers and sports centers in countries including Mexico, Greece, Kuwait, Hong Kong, and the Dominican Republic.

“I think that every day you have more people who have more knowledge that taking care of your body is very important now, so investing in educating children, investing in welfare, and in sports,” said Nadal.

In 2025, Nadal sold 44.9% of the Academy to private investment firm GPF Capital, a transaction valued at approximately 94 million euros, approximately $107 million. The deal left Nadal with 55.1% of the shares and majority control.

“This is something that is a lifelong project, very personal to me, but at the same time, the company has grown over the last few years, and we felt that we needed some help to continue to grow and continue to grow,” he said.