Rafael Nadal wins Twitter, too

Rafael Nadal is popular on Twitter despite his limited activity. (Sang Tan/AP) Rafael Nadal has become the first tennis player to exceed four million Twitter
Rafael Nadal wins Twitter, too
Rafael Nadal wins Twitter, too /

Rafael Nadal is popular on Twitter despite his limited activity. (Sang Tan/AP)

Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal has become the first tennis player to exceed four million Twitter followers, making him one of the 200 or so most-followed accounts on the social-media service.

That's impressive work, given that he began tweeting only a year and a half ago, averages fewer than two messages per day, writes many of them in Spanish and was off the radar while sidelined for seven months after Wimbledon last year. His total is 400,000 more than that of Serena Williams, who is No. 2 among tennis players.

Here's the breakdown on Nadal's Twitter reach:

https://twitter.com/tennistweetscom/status/317704709563641857

https://twitter.com/tennistweetscom/status/317705150020075522

Here's Rafa's first tweet, sent on Aug. 2, 2011:

https://twitter.com/RafaelNadal/status/98375699534053377

His four million Twitter followers complement a huge profile on Facebook, where he has 11.5 million fans. Taken as a whole, Nadal has the biggest following on all English social media. Roger Federer, who is not on Twitter, ranks second thanks to 12.5 million Facebook fans. On the women's side, Maria Sharapova leads the pack with 9.7 million Facebook fans and a slow-growing Twitter following of nearly 170,000.


Published
Courtney Nguyen
COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.