Toni Nadal: Bill Gates told Rafael Nadal about outbreak when they met in Cape Town

• Tennis News
• Rafael Nadal

Toni Nadal, the uncle and former coach of Spanish tennis great Rafael Nadal, says that American businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates had told Rafa about the COVID-19 outbreak in China when the two met in South Africa in early February for the Match in Africa exhibition event.

According to the Spanish daily Marca, Toni Nadal says, "My nephew, when he was playing in South Africa in February, spoke to Bill Gates and (Gates) told him that what was happening in China was going to get complicated ...

I don't know if this is going to change us because the human being is forgetful and we soon forget, but we have to do some tinkering. Until there is a drug or a vaccine, I see the picture is quite complicated. We will live in a situation of uncertainty and danger until this is well managed.

The main thing is to save lives and there has been ignorance throughout the political system of many countries. We should banish the fanaticism of the politicians; they are to defend society, not its ideals. Fanaticism is one of the great evils of this society.

The big problem with politics is that they increasingly cover more ground and keep experts off that ground. You can be a good member of parliament but a bad administrator. I think politics should leave many things in the hands of experts" Toni Nadal also spoke about the impact of this crisis on him personally.

"I'm not going to complain because there are people who are having a really bad time. The Mallorca Tournament is not permanently suspended, we will try to find new dates to see if it can be done in 2020, the organizers are on it.

Right now I don't have the head for tennis, the last thing I was thinking about was the happening of the Mallorca Tournament. There will be no more Wimbledon, that's not worrying, the worrying thing is that many people are dying.

We have become accustomed to not being critical of ourselves; we must begin to be critical of ourselves, from there we can demand of ourselves much more."