[imagesource:here]

Vamos, Rafa!

Yesterday, the undisputed king of clay thumped Novak Djokovic in straight sets to claim his 13th French Open title, and 20th Grand Slam men’s singles title overall.

That brings him level with Roger Federer, with Djokovic in third place on 17, having butchered a prime chance to move to 18 with his antics at the US Open last month.

The Spaniard said that he had to play at the peak of his powers to dismantle the Serbian so ruthlessly, and his display has rightly dominated headlines.

Something that has flown a little under the radar is Nadal’s choice of wristwear during the tournament, which is just a touch out of reach for the average consumer.

The Richard Mille watch he’s been wearing retails for a cool $1,05 million (around R17,3 million), although this was most definitely a freebie.

Below via Forbes:

Richard Mille released the RM 27-04 watch last month to mark the ten-year anniversary of its partnership with the tennis great. The watch weighs a scant 30 grams (or one ounce), including the strap, and is billed as the lightest tourbillon in the world. Nadal says his Richard Mille watch is a like a “second skin” to him.

The Swiss watch brand says the RM 27-04 construction was inspired by the same principles “as the strings of a tennis racquet.” It is a limited edition of only 50 watches.

Nadal often wears pricy Richard Mille watches during big tournaments, and he wore a $750 000 watch during 2017’s title-winning run at the French Open, and a $725 000 watch when winning last year’s US Open.

Must be nice to rake in a cool $40 million or so a year, and then be given fancy watches and even yachts on top of that all.

Back to the watch, and the tennis racquet design principle we briefly touched on earlier, via GQ:

The inner workings were secured in the same way one would string a tennis racket, with a special gossamer steel cable woven together to make a mesh structure to which the skeletonised manual movement was secured.

These strings limit the excessive friction and impact sustained over the course of a tennis match, while also making for a striking visual feature. And did we mention there are 19 jewels and a 38-hour power reserve?

You hadn’t. Thanks for clearing that up.

All in all, not a bad number to have wrapped around your wrist when you draw level with Federer and take home a cool €1,6 million (around R31 million) payday at the same time.

You can find all the watch’s specs on the official site here, but let’s finish with this video showing some of the inner workings:

[sources:forbes&gq]