Rafael Nadal says he spent most of his tennis career living out of hotels.

“That’s what I did during half of my life, and I know what I like the most,” he told CNBC. So opening his own felt natural.

The 22-time Grand Slam winner, who retired from competitive tennis in November 2024, just opened his fourth hotel in the Canary Islands in Fuerteventura under his hospitality brand Zel Hotels, founded in 2022 in partnership with Meliá Hotels International.

The brand opened its first hotel, ZEL Mallorca, in 2023. Hotels in Costa Brava in Spain and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic followed.

“I am not the kind of guy that likes to wake up in the morning and don’t know what to do, and my goal was to keep going,” Nadal told Tania Bryer for “CNBC Meets,” to be released later this week.

“In the same way I built a legacy on the court, now is the moment to build a legacy outside of the court.”

Mallorca-born Nadal added that people had started spending more on experiences, making hospitality a burgeoning area to invest in.

But he said that building a brand was “a challenge in the beginning,” as the space is so competitive.

Several leading tennis players, including Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, ended a boycott of a protest over prize money last week, after talks with the All England Club, the organizers of Wimbledon.

Wimbledon has increased its prize money by 20% this year to £64.2 million ($85 million), its largest annual increase ever. Players wanted the prize fund to be about £71 million, equivalent to roughly 16% of tournament revenue. More broadly, leading players have pushed for Grand Slams to pay players 22% of revenues by 2030.

Nadal said that he saw both points of…