Serving Aces & Advantages
Samantha Lim reminisces on Richard Mille and Rafael Nadal’s seven-year partnership and lauds the newest timepiece in the Nadal collection
“Richard has been supporting us for years on every front; his help is both important and invaluable... It is now a friendship, a real one!”
SHATTERING SUPERSTITION
Tennis players are a superstitious bunch, often relating their triumphs and losses to the fulfilment of, or failure to adhere to certain conditions. Some repeat quirky gestures (grooming their hair or kissing the ball) like transient tics, while others believe that luck lies in one’s choice of apparel (or lack of, as exemplified by Andre Agassi, who goes commando while competing). No exception to the case, Rafael Nadal was initially wary of wearing a watch on the court for fear of jinxing his game. However, during a rendezvous with Richard Mille in 2008, the older technophile persuaded the younger to loosen his grip on tradition, and to make an exception for an ultra-light watch. Describing the RM 27 Tourbillon as a ‘second skin,’ an impressed and appreciative Nadal quickly grew attached to his pragmatic timepiece.
LA DECIMA—THE TENTH ONE!
A phrase popularised by Real Madrid’s 10th European Cup win at the 2014 Champions League final, la decima, Spanish for ‘the tenth,’ totals an auspicious number of wins in the world of athletics. Hence the hullabaloo, when Rafael Nadal obliterated Swiss star Stan Wawrinka at Roland-garros in Paris on Sunday, June 11, 2017. In under two hours, the staggering result on the scoreboard read: 6-2, 6-3 and 6-1. Historical in more ways than one, the win ended a three-year drought of major titles for Nadal and marked the first time anyone had taken home a tenth title in the same Grand Slam tournament. When 19-year-old Nadal won his first French Open in 2005 who would have guessed that more than a decade later, the wunderkind would celebrate his tenth anniversary win in the same court? Certainly not the islander himself, who admitted, “In 2005, I thought in 2017 I’d be fishing on my boat in Mallorca.” Having stood by Nadal since 2010, Richard Mille strove to forge an exceptional timepiece for the unprecedented match at Roland-garros 2017. Brandishing the colours of his motherland on his wrist, Nadal’s stylish win is aesthetically affiliated with the reveal of the RM 27-03, which stood out in stark contrast to his blue Nike ensemble, and is now seared onto the memories of thousands of spectators.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED: THE RM 27-03 RAFAEL NADAL
Witnesses in the watch industry still chatter about the day when, in a dramatic display driven by conviction and before a crowd of staggered spectators, Richard Mille forcibly flung the first RM 001 to the floor, leaving the timepiece with nary a dent. It was 2001 and Mille was determined to disprove a fallacy: that tourbillon watches, despite being coveted for their accuracy, fall short in durability. The RM 001 laid the groundwork for a string of episodic achievements, the most recent being the RM 27-03, which sees the following specs:
FORM:
The skeleton bridges subtly allude to the skull of the Osborne bull, a symbol of Nadal’s homeland Spain. Likewise, the crown playfully bears semblance to the shape of a tennis ball. Colloquially called ‘la Rojigualda,’ the flag of Spain inspired the fiery red and yellow case fitted to a feather light, fluorescent Velcro strap (initially introduced in the RM 27-01 of 2013).
FUNCTION:
Impervious to UV radiation and water resistant to 50 metres, the RM 27-03 sees a trio of cutting-edge traits: a rapid winding barrel with a 70-hour power reserve (the RM 027 of 2010 lasted 48 hours); a ‘unibody’ (as first seen in the RM 27-02 of 2015); and a tourbillon calibre withstanding shocks up to 10,000 G’s (twice as hardy as the RM 27-01 of 2013).
While only 50 pieces of the RM 27-03 were manufactured, watch enthusiasts with the good fortune of coming into its ownership ought not to treat their acquisition as a precious collectible, but to take it forth into their respective fields. Mille’s mission was, after all, to put forth practical timepieces, not museum pieces.
“I never used to wear a watch and hadn’t even thought about wearing one, but when Richard proposed to make me a watch that was light, robust and comfortable, I was interested in his initiative, although I was reluctant to wear it on the court!”