Rafael Nadal is displaying an impressive tennis at the Roland Garros after he conceded just 20 games in the first four rounds. The Spaniard is in vintage mode also with his “old foe”: the time violation. In slams, you need to serve within 20 seconds from the last point, and this is a rule that the Spanish legend tends to forget a bit too much as he often averages between 27 and 30 seconds in between points.
Average time between points on Zverev’s & Nadal’s serves today, from Tennis Australia’s GIG. The Slam limit is supposed to be 20 seconds… pic.twitter.com/E5jAgQRBPk
— Christopher Clarey (@christophclarey) January 21, 2017
What happened
During his match against Roberto Bautista Agut, Rafa received a time violation from Carlos Ramos. The Spaniard didn’t take it nicely to say to Carlos
“You can keep giving me those warnings but you are not going to be in the chair for me again.”
Ramos was not afraid about that to penalize Rafa of his serve for the same offense later.
We are not machine
During the post-match press conference, Rafa commented
“I respect him a lot, but it should work both ways. I’m telling you this with some type of sadness because I don’t want to have any problems. But this umpire is trying, in a certain way, to look for my faults, my errors. This is the impression I have.
Some dictate things or give their calls in a certain way. Other umpires have different styles. It happened in the past.
I remember this pressure in the past because I take time before I serve. But if you want to play well, you have to let players breathe a little. We’re not machines.
Theoretically, the umpires are here to analyze the match, and they are not here to use the stopwatch. Otherwise, we should have a stopwatch on the court. That’s the whole point.”
A rule is a rule
Of course, we love Rafa, but a rule is a rule, even a “stupid” one. Otherwise, what’s the point of having rules?
Incidentally, Nadal’s comments to Carlos Ramos transparently using his status for preventing an official enforcing the rules against him.
— Kamakshi Tandon (@Kamakshi_Tandon) June 5, 2017
