Game and Entertainment

Rafael "Rafa" Nadal Parera (born 3 June 1986) is a former World No. 1 Spanish professional tennis player, currently ranked #3. Nadal has won six Grand Slam singles titles, and the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles. Nadal was ranked World Number #1 from 18 August 2008 to 5 July 2009. In 2009, he became the first player to simultaneously hold Grand Slam titles on clay, grass, and hardcourt. His success on clay has earned him the nickname The King of Clay. Nadal was ranked World No. 2, behind Roger Federer for a record 160 weeks before earning the top spot. He has subsequently lost this position again to Federer following the Swiss player's triumph at the 2009 Madrid Masters (where Federer beat him in the final), French Open and Wimbledon. In 2008, he was given the Prince of Asturias Award for Sports, in recognition of his achievements in tennis. Nadal generally plays an aggressive behind-the-baseline game founded on heavy topspin groundstrokes, consistency, speedy footwork...

Chess is a recreational and competitive board game played between two players. The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments. The game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move. The tradition of organized competitive chess started in the 16th century and has dev...

Early cricket was at some time or another described as "a club striking a ball (like) the ancient games of club-ball, stool-ball, trap-ball, stob-ball". Cricket can definitely be traced back to Tudor times in early 16th-century England. Written evidence exists of a game known as creag being played by Prince Edward, the son of Edward I (Longshanks), at Newenden, Kent in 1301 and there has been speculation, but no evidence, that this was a form of cricket. A number of other words have been suggested as sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598, it is called creckett. Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch krick(-e), meaning a stick (crook); or the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff. In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of c...