Classy or weird? Pedro Cachin asking for Rafael Nadal souvenir causes a racket
Argentine requested a T-shirt of Nadal's after losing to the 22-time Grand Slam champion in Madrid and has garnered mixed reactions from his fellow pros
Swapping jerseys in football is commonplace, and part of a tradition that dates back almost 100 years. It gives opponents the chance to show mutual respect, while keeping a special memento from a certain game.
That tradition has spread across sports, catching on in basketball, NFL, and other sports. This week in Madrid, Argentina’s Pedro Cachin may have just started the trend in tennis.
It wasn’t a jersey swap per se, but after he lost a gruelling three-hour match to Rafael Nadal at the Caja Magica on Monday, Cachin expressed his admiration for the Spanish 22-time major champion and made a surprise request.
“You have fulfilled a dream for me. Can I keep your shirt or something of yours?” Cachin asked Nadal as they shook hands at the net.
Nadal then went to his bench to collect a used match shirt and gave it to Cachin.
As Nadal resumed his farewell tour this spring in what is very likely the last season of his professional career, Cachin knew how special it was to be drawn against the Spaniard for the first time, and in a goosebump-inducing atmosphere no less, as the roaring home crowd on Manolo Santana Stadium rallied behind their greatest ever champion.
It was a beautiful moment and a warm gesture that took the tour – and social media – by storm, with many players weighing in over the past few days here in Madrid.
“If I would play against Rafa, for sure I would ask for a T-shirt,” said women's World No 1 Iga Swiatek.
Third-seeded Daniil Medvedev thought the request from Cachin was “classy”, one that perhaps might inspire others to begin collecting shirts from their opponents.
“That was pretty fun from Pedro. I felt like it was a classy move, which we don’t have in tennis. I don’t think I ever had it,” said Medvedev.
“I think someone once asked me, it was in a Grand Slam. I don’t think I gave him because I had like five T-shirts, it was like in Australia or US Open, one of the two, and it was humid and I said, ‘Look, after the tournament ask me and I’ll do it no problem’.
“I would never have wanted to from one person. If I would do it, I would start collecting, five, 10, here and there. Not my thing to do it with one person. So I would collect many, if it would become a thing.”
Tunisian Ons Jabeur is also a fan of the idea, and said she’d love to display kit worn by her opponents to display at her own academy one day.
“I think because he’s Argentinian, and he’s into football a lot and that’s what they do in football, but I think it was a very sweet thing to have,” Jabeur said of Cachin.
“But now basically I’m going to ask every player for their T-shirt maybe. I think the most common thing in tennis would be a racquet, not a T-shirt, but definitely one day I would want to have a souvenir of the players that I like and enjoy, maybe for my academy to keep it for sure.”
Having a souvenir from a specific match is something many players would like to have but rarely thought of much in the past.
Outside the ceremonial pre-match photo taken at the net, there aren’t that many opportunities to personally commemorate a tennis battle.
Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos once took a selfie with Novak Djokovic after he lost to the Serb in a match in Doha, and he did the same with Nadal in Barcelona a couple of months later.
“The picture is better than taking something from them. I don’t want to tell them, ‘Give me one T-shirt’ or something like that. So a picture allows me to remember them for all my life,” Zeballos told ATP Uncovered.
Former US Open finalist Madison Keys said she would have loved to find a special way to commemorate a match she played against Serena Williams in New York in 2015.
“I don't know if I have ever wanted to take, like, a souvenir, but there have been moments where in the moment I was, like, ‘Wow, I wish I could bottle this moment so I could revisit it’,” recalled Keys.
“I think that one moment for me that really stands out is when I played Serena on Labor Day Weekend on [Arthur] Ashe [Stadium], and it was packed, and it was the year she was going for all four [grand slam]. So everyone was there.
“It was honestly the coolest experience to be able to walk out. Obviously I lost, which kind of sucked, but I mean, just that moment is something that I think will always forever be one of my favourite tennis memories.”
Williams donned a coral pink tie-dye dress during that US Open; surely Keys would have loved to have one of those hanging in her closet, or at least the accompanying yellow bandana?
Not everyone was on board with Cachin’s move. Jiri Lehecka, who knocked out Nadal in the fourth round on Tuesday, marking the Mallorcan’s last appearance on the ATP Tour in Madrid, said asking for a shirt was the farthest thing from his mind.
“It's tough for me to say, because I went on the court to win, you know?” said the Czech No 30 seed.
“Then it's tough for me to run after him and to ask him if he can give me something. I don't want to sound disrespectful or something – that's the last thing I would like to – but if you are playing a match and you are thinking about asking the guy to give you something, then why you are there? It's kind of weird, in my opinion.”
Nick Kyrgios does not agree, and responded on X to a pundit who made that same argument, saying: “NBA players, soccer players do it all the time? It’s a memory, an experience that took a lifetime of work and that less than one per cent of humans get to.”
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One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
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