HURRY UP, RAFA
Now Nadal is penalised by umpire before match even starts
YOU might think a £550,000 wristwatch would ensure Rafael Nadal stays punctual, but on and off court yesterday the world No 1 was told to hurry up.
First we had the unprecedented sight of Nadal given a time violation, before his match against Mikhail Kukushkin even started, by an umpire with whom he has serious history.
Then once the hard work was done, the moderator in his Wimbledon press conference tried to get him to finish an extensive answer on the very subject of clocking on before he was ready.
‘One second, because I feel the pressure,’ said Nadal when the man sitting beside moved to call for the next question. ‘We finish the match, so I don’t need that.’
It was a funny line but earlier the tone had been more serious on court, for the latest episode of Nadal’s long-running conflict with umpire Carlos Bernardes.
Wimbledon is using the 1-5-1 rule before matches, which gives players one minute to be ready for the pre-contest address, five minutes to warm up, and a further one minute to start play.
Due to an obsessive, possibly compulsive, routine that includes meticulous bottle placement by his chair, Nadal fell foul of the regulations, leaving Kukushkin standing alone. Bernardes duly delivered a warning.
Not that Nadal knew, it turned out. ‘Before the match I had? First news about that,’ he said. Nadal went on to complain that Wimbledon does not have a countdown clock like at other Grand Slams, but his grievance was undermined by the luxury timepiece on his wrist, an item called RM 27-03 and worth the price of a very nice house in most parts of England.
Bernardes also informed both players when time was up but then Nadal does not hold the Brazilian official in high regard.
Nadal had tried to get Bernardes removed from his matches at the 2015 French Open after a simmering row over slow play, in a move that, when revealed, saw Novak Djokovic warn such meddling placed the sport’s integrity at risk.
Nadal’s gripe relates to the time he went on court at the Rio Open with shorts on the wrong way and was told by Bernardes he would be given another time violation if he went back to the toilets to amend. So Nadal changed them round on court.
Clearly the bad feeling still lingers, and it will be interesting to see if Wimbledon assigns Bernardes to Nadal again.
‘I am nobody to say, “I don’t want him on my court”. I just can ask if I believe that somebody’s not doing the things fair with me, I just can ask if is possible to have another umpire.’
Nadal’s 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over Kukushkin was trickier than the scoreline suggests. Other than another warning coming when Nadal took an extraordinarily long time to get ready for the third set, the Kazakh across the net was a constant trouble with his flat forehand.
But Nadal continues in his quest to go beyond round four here for the first time since 2011.