Meeting idol an Students as ball kids

The exhibition match was held at Ginásio Mineirinho (Belo Horizonte/MG) and featured a preliminary match involving other big names in the sport.

How powerful a dream coming true can be? We don’t know how to measure, but we are sure of its power. The year 2022 entered the history of WimBelemDon with the achievement of something unimaginable for us, and even more for the 16 students directly involved with this milestone.

Thanks to the support of our ambassador Bruno Soares, the enormous work of our staff and great financial investment, we managed to take 16 young people, in addition to seven employees, to a meeting with the Spaniard player Rafael Nadal, the greatest male winner of Grand Slam tournaments and a tennis legend. This exciting chapter in the history of the project took place at the end of November, in Minas Gerais, where the Spanish myth faced Norwegian Casper Ruud, number 3 in the world.

A very special tennis clinic

Before the event started, an unprecedented tennis clinic was held: the Rafael Nadal Academy team called several children to play on the gymnasium court. To experience this moment in the best way, we carried out a twoweek preparation with training and guidance for our students.

The first match marked the farewell of our ambassador Bruno Soares, in his homeland, playing alongside the legendary Bob Bryan, and facing his former doubles partner Marcelo Melo, who played with Rafael Mattos, from Rio Grande do Sul.

In addition to watching the game, our students acted as match ball kids – as if they had been doing this for a long time, demonstrating seriousness, respect and agility. Full stadium (over 12,000 people), broadcast throughout Brazil and a great reward at the end: a team photo with Nadal.

In total, a trip of more than 70 hours and almost 4,000 kilometers, which certainly excited the participants and impacted them for life. And of the many lessons we can draw from this experience, one certainly stands out: dreams are always possible to come true when we believe and take advantage of the conditions to pursue them.

On the occasion, our founder and superintendent, Marcelo Ruschel, handed Nadal our commemorative book for the project’s 20th anniversary, highlighting the page that records the Spaniard’s help in the crowdfunding campaign to buy our land, in 2015. Then, Nadal donated three rackets and three autographed jerseys, which were sold for BRL 90,000 (around 20% of the value of the land), which was essential for us to be, at the time, Brazilian record holders of crowdfunding for the Third Sector, raising more than BRL 500,000.00 and acquiring the land, which until then was leased.