Don’t tell me to speed up, blasts Nadal
TIC, tic, tic, tic, boom. In between the fidgeting, shuffling, ruffling and picking his shorts out of his backside, Rafael Nadal really can play some delightfully brutal tennis.
But yesterday, as so often, the same question kept coming to mind, recurring each time he embarked on that monstrously long routine of adjustments and bounces between shots.
Sure, he made quick work of Dudi Sela, crushing his first-round opponent 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. Not many strokes wasted there.
But it is necessary at this juncture to consider that a day earlier Roger Federer conceded the same amount of games against Dusan Lajovic and it took 79 minutes — 31 fewer than Nadal spent pummelling the world No 127.
It’s not a massive issue, of course. But it is most definitely a relevant one, with Wimbledon considering using an on-court shot clock for the 2019 edition, which would do a far stronger job than any umpire has managed in enforcing the 25- second rule between points.
Nadal is the most notorious abuser of that law and it is tempting to wonder if his pre-shot tics will make way for something a little more speedy when a whopping great clock is counting him down.
Predictably, the Spaniard hates the idea. He has made that clear in the past and the 32-year- old reiterated it in a delightfully scathing manner again when asked about it after his demolition job yesterday.
‘If you want to see a quick game without thinking, well done,’ he said. And then he just kept on going. ‘If you want to keep playing in a sport where you need to think, you need to play with more tactics, you want to have long and good rallies, then of course you are going the wrong way.
‘But it seems like sometimes it is only about the business, so I can’t support this, no, because I don’t feel the matches that stay for the history of our sport went that quick (snapping fingers).’ He wasn’t done there. ‘I don’t remember emotional matches where the total time has been two hours,’ he added.
‘All the matches that have been important in the history of our sport have been four hours, five hours.
‘To play these kind of matches you need time between points because you cannot play points in a row with long rallies, with emotional points, having only 25 seconds between points.’
Point made, and not a right-to-left, left- to- right stroke of his forehead in sight, not a tug of the shirt and shorts to be seen.
But the bigger point of his fortnight has nothing to do with slow play.
It’s about showing that he still has the body for grass, having gone eight years since the second of his two titles here.
It’s a small haul that smacks of a potential unfulfilled if such a ludicrous thing can be said of a 17-time Slam winner, but it is prescient on the 10th anniversary of his win over Federer in arguably the greatest final of all to remember just how good he has been on the surface. Injuries have obviously wrecked his hopes on too many occasions, and the scheduling challenge of putting Wimbledon so close to the French Open is a considerable one.
The fact that Nadal always goes the distance in Paris has counted against his chances in London, as demonstrated again by him feeling the need to take the past month off following his 11th title at Roland Garros. But was there any rust? Any hint that the transition to grass was troublesome? None whatsoever.
He stayed well within his comfort zone and only entered the higher gears when necessary, such as at 3-3 in the first set.
Sela had been competitive until that stage but Nadal reeled off 16 straight points to take the set and gain a break for 1-0 at the start of the second.
His only wobble came with a dropped service game at the start of the third.
The response? An immediate break back and then two more. Brutal.
Next up is Mikhail Kukushkin and quite likely another demolition, in between the fidgeting, of course.
Elsewhere, seventh seed Dominic Thiem of Austria retired injured while trailing 6- 4, 7- 5, 2- 0 to Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.
Australian Matthew Ebden beat 10th seed David Goffin of Belgium 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.