It's The Tourist Economy, Stupid

Rafael Nadal, darling of the Balearic tourism promotion courts to the tune of around six million euros worth of forehand, has inadvertently unleashed a back-handed lack of compliment to a French market to the Balearics that amounts to some 300,000 visitors. Or rather, his uncle, Toni, has delivered an overhead smash of a potentially damaging sort. Given that the islands' tourism bods had diverted 400k of promotion via the French Open - in the form of a video of Rafa inviting the French to come to the Balearics - it does seem a bit unfortunate that Toni should describe the Parisian public as being "really stupid". On the back of Nadal's defeat at Roland Garros, his uncle and trainer, miffed at the apparent support of the tennis-goers for Roger Federer, launched his invective. To make matters worse, the director of Spanish tourism in Paris seems to have agreed with the Nadal uncle, saying that the Paris public has no style. The tourism ministry back on the islands is keeping a somewhat stupefied silence.

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