Here are some photos of Rafael Nadal at a Tommy Hilfiger promotion event in Madrid this week. Nadal is one of the faces of the Hilfiger label, and Nadal looked nice at the event. Rafa still makes so much money from his endorsements, even when he really did not have the best year. He hasn’t won a major since 2014, he failed to make the quarterfinals at every major this year, he’s been plagued and sidelined with injuries, and he struggled in many of the big tournaments this year, although he did win some titles in 2016, and he also won another Olympic gold medal (in doubles). He also turned 30 years old this year, which is widely believed to be the “cliff” which many tennis players begin to lose their edge.

Add to all of that the conversation around Rafa’s looks. He was always a beautiful guy, with that fantastic body, bright smile and impossibly high cheekbones. But over the past few years, he’s been noticeably losing his hair. At the Olympics and at the US Open, his bald spot and receding hairline was really obvious. And I thought that was fine – men are so sensitive about their hair, but Nadal was and is a good-looking guy, with or without hair. But apparently Nadal was super-sensitive about it. Allegedly, he got a hair transplant this month. And these Hilfiger-event photos are our first look at his new hair.

It’s El Mundo to reveal important and interesting details on Rafael Nadal’s hair transplant done in a clinic in Madrid a few weeks ago. An outpatient surgery that was pretty painful for Rafa, who had a local anesthetic. The process was divided in two days, where Nadal has been treated for more than ten hours. According to what the doctor Mato Ansorena revealed, the therapy used was the Follicular Unit Extraction, which consists in removing the follicular units, which are composed each one by 2-3 hairs, from the nake in the case of the Spaniard player. In that part of head, ‘the hair never falls. It gets implanted in the frontal part of the head, where Nadal needed the hair’, Ansorena said. Because of the tough process, Rafa had to wait for 15 days to have a “normal” life again, it means being able to sleep in any position and play sports. The definitive look will be a reality in April because it takes six months to see the final result of this new and innovative treatment.

[From Tennis World]

I’m not completely sure if these are Spanish-gossip rumors somehow being legitimatized in the English-language press, or if we’re getting hard confirmation that Rafa got a hair transplant. But judging from these photos, I think we do have a visual confirmation: his hair looks thicker. His hairline looks more filled-out than it did at the US Open. And from what I can see with these angles, his bald spot has sort of disappeared too. Oh, Rafa. You didn’t need to do this! But it’s your body, your choice.

Photos courtesy of WENN.