[imagesource: Twitter/mastadon]
Just like Charlie Brown’s friend Linus, Rafael Nadal seems to really like his towel.
During Wednesday’s second-round Australian Open match against American Mackenzie McDonald, the top-seeded player had a go at umpire Marijana Veljovic for starting the timer for his serves too early. Nadal insisted he needed more time with his towel.
Prior to the outburst, Nadal was not doing too well and clearly struggled with persistent injuries, so he might just have been letting off some steam.
Veljovic seemed to understand this and only looked on as the tennis player complained about his lack of towel time. She probably has children and some experience with tantrums.
“Every match, at least I can move for the towel. With you, I cannot. Every time I am in a rush, even when serving normal, without the towel, I see the clock … five, four, with you it’s always the same.”
“I cannot take the towel each time, the towel is there. You don’t know, you try to understand, but you don’t take the towel.”
As reported by Eurosport, Mackenzie McDonald had no towel issues on the day, and after a brilliant start continued to dominate the Spanjiard, eventually winning the match in straight sets 6-4 6-4 7-5.
Take a look at the strange encounter below.
One person who might be able to shed some light on Nadal’s mystical towel and its various soothing properties is our Editor in Chief, Seth Rotherham, who has recently been raving about the new Netflix doccie, Breaking Point.
Naturally, we had to look into it and decided its relevance to Nadal’s bad towel day is too good not to share:
Tennis players are weird.
[source:eurosport]
