Rafael Nadal Parera (রাফায়েল নাদাল পারেরা) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 209 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. Nadal won 92 ATP Tour-level singles titles, including 22 major titles (among which a record 14 French Open titles), as well as 36 Masters titles and an Olympic gold medal. Nadal is one of three men to complete the career Golden Slam in singles. His 81 consecutive wins on clay constitute the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era.

Rafael Nadal Parera was born on 3 June 1986 in Manacor on the island of Mallorca, Spain, to Ana María Parera Femenías and Sebastián Nadal Homar. His father is a businessman who owns an insurance company, a glass and window company, and a restaurant. His mother owned a perfume shop but gave it up to raise Nadal and his younger sister, María Isabel. One of his uncles, Miguel Ángel Nadal, is a retired professional footballer who played for RCD Mallorca, FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team. As a child, he idolized Ronaldo, and through his uncle was given access to the Barcelona team dressing room to have a photo taken with the Brazilian. Another uncle, tennis coach Toni Nadal, introduced him to tennis when he was three years old.

In June 2009, reports emerged that Nadal's parents, Ana María and Sebastián, had separated, following weeks of speculation about his recent struggles on the court. Nadal later stated "My parents' divorce made an important change in my life. It affected me. After that, I couldn't play Wimbledon, it was tough."

Nadal met his future wife, María Francisca (Mery) Perelló Pascual through his younger sister, María Isabel. They began dating in 2005, when he was 19 and she was 17, and only formalized their relationship publicly in 2007, with their engagement reported in January 2019. In October 2019, the couple was married at the La Fortaleza castle in Port de Pollença, Majorca. On 8 October 2022, they had a son named Rafael. Nadal had previously commented on not starting a family early and expressed a desire to have children in the future, reflecting on the unpredictability of life during his ongoing tennis career.

When Nadal was aged 10 to 21, the extended Nadal family shared a five-storey, family-owned apartment building in Manacor. In 2012, Nadal purchased a house in Porto Cristo for about 4 million euros, located near his family home. Around the time he won the 2012 French Open, Nadal acquired a vacation home, a two-story villa in Playa Nueva Romana, in the Dominican Republic, for about 2 million euros.

Throughout his career, Nadal had chronic knee injuries, sidelining him from multiple tournaments. In late 2012, Nadal received over six months of physical therapy, along with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, a non-surgical treatment that had been previously disallowed by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Nadal has a rare chronic disorder of his left ankle, Mueller-Weiss syndrome, diagnosed age 19. He received anesthetic injections en route to winning the 2022 French Open.