Rafael Nadal Joins Team PokerStars & You Can Help Him Improve His Game

June 21st, 2012 | 9:38 pm

Tennis star Rafael "Rafa" Nadal has joined Team PokerStars. To celebrate, PokerStars is running a promotion asking you to help Nadal with his poker game.

By Matt Kaufman, Rakeback.com Poker News Editor

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. He has won 11 Grand Slam singles titles, which places him in a tie with Bjorn Borg for 3rd place on the all-time men's list.

He's also one of just 3 players ever to have won all 4 tennis Grand Slams and an Olympic Gold Medal in his singles career (the others are Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf). Currently, he's the #2 ranked tennis player in the world behind Novak Djokovic.

To add to his resume, Nadal can now call himself a member of Team PokerStars. Nadal is almost certainly the most famous individual to sign with an online poker room to date.

PokerStars, the world's largest online poker room, has in the past reached out to individuals outside of the poker world for potential sponsorship deals. Nadal will be the 4th professional athlete on their roster, joining Dutch field hockey star Fatima Moriera de Melo, Swedish cross-country skier Marcus Hellner, and German tennis legend Boris Becker.

You Can Help Nadal Improve His Game

As you can see, PokerStars is taking video submissions to help Rafa improve his poker game.

The creator of the video which Nadal likes the most will receive an EPT Barcelona prize package including €5,300 Main Event buy-in, 8 nights in a 4-star hotel, and €1,500 for expenses. The winner and 5 runner-ups will also receive a chipset signed by Rafa.

Even if you aren't in the top 6, EVERYONE who submits a suitable video will receive a $22 MicroMillions Main Event tournament ticket.

This promotion is open from now through August 3rd. Here are the rules:

1 - You may only submit 1 video per player, per week. All videos must be in English.
2 - Send your video to nadal@pokerstars.com. Include your full name and PokerStars ID.
3 - Your submission must be less than 30 seconds long and no larger than 15MB. Acceptable formats include MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV, and WMV.

You MUST have a PokerStars account to participate in this promotion. If you don't already have one, sign up for one now following our instructions to receive up to 74% value back and a 100% sign-up bonus of up to $600.