Petzschner Unhappy With Unsporting Nadal | Thebigtip

There’s been a fair bit of talk about the medical time out Rafael Nadal took in the fourth set in his five set match against Philipp Petzschner. No one has been more vocal about it than Petzschner himself. The lively German lost focus after Nadal took treatment for a leg injury and proceeded to squander his 2-1 set lead. He was quick to berate himself in his interview, saying he needs to work on his focus when disruptions happen in matches. But he also shed some light on Nadal’s time-out, and although careful not to say all out that Nadal used the time to break his opponent’s rhythm, he hinted strongly at it in his press conference. When asked outright if he thought gamesmanship had been used Petzschner replied:

“I cannot say this. You have to ask him what it was. But I didn’t feel any difference afterwards or before. So he was ‑‑ I thought he was moving great. I only could say if I would be injured like this once I would be happy. No, but I don’t know. Maybe he had something. Maybe it was just a clever part to take a timeout there.”

Pushed to elaborate further by the eager press, Petzschner gave a little more:

“I don’t assume that he didn’t had anything, that there was just a timeout for no reason. I mean, you know that he has problems with his knee all the time. I think he got treatment for his knee again. So I don’t assume that he just did to break my rhythm. But that’s what happened, and that’s mostly my fault. Yeah, that’s what I have to work on.”

All and all it was clear that whilst reluctant to accuse Nadal of gamesmanship he certainly believed that to be the case, even saying that he would ‘love’ to be injured like Nadal if that kind of movement is the result.

Petzschner has a point. Nadal took his time out before Petzschner was to serve, causing his muscles to cool and him to lose the momentum. He was broken immediately and was never the same player.

Nadal is known for playing mind games, despite his reputation as a thoroughly nice guy. Patrick McEnroe sums it up nicely in his new book, Harcourt Confidential.

Rafael Nadal, as nice a kid and good a sportsman as he is, gets into the mind games a bit, wittingly or not. He makes his opponents wait on him, not just between points (for which he gets criticized) but in the locker room and on the sidelines as well. When the tournament officials call Nadal’s match, he goes to take another piss, making his opponent stand there, waiting. When the umpire calls them out to the center of the court for the coin toss, Rafa will often stay in his chair, fiddling with towels or his bottles while the other guy walks right out— and has to wait.

Fans know half of this, they see Nadal taking his time before the coin toss and after time is called. They see him take time between points and whilst a few unhappy fans, (usually of his opponent), moan, hardly anything is said openly. This is because Nadal, as McEnroe said, is a nice guy and good sportsman. It’s just during the actual tennis he tends to leave those manners behind. It’s because of this that I am willing to agree with Petzschner and say that yes, Nadal called an injury time-out to disrupt the momentum of the game. Nadal offered the following explanation for his time-out:

“No, everything is fair to think what they want. I never call a treatment ‑‑ I never call the physio when I don’t have nothing, not one time in my career. If I call the physio today, it was because it was bothering me a lot, the knee, no?
The last day, it starts a little bit, and I didn’t call the physio because I can’t resist that. But today I needed to take little bit time. I have the quadriceps muscle very tight and I need to relax it a little bit. Maybe with this relaxation, the knee works a little bit better.”

Nadal’s explanation seems to be somewhat of a half-truth; he probably does have some kind of niggle at the moment, what kind of tennis player doesn’t? But the timing in which he decided to treat it is the key. There was no evidence reason he couldn’t have waited until his own service game and even he said himself that he had the problem for more than one match. He just happened to call for the trainer with Petzschner leading two sets to one and on serve.

The problem is that other than it being a little rude Nadal isn’t breaking any rules. Players use injury time outs to break momentum all the time; Nadal isn’t the first player to do this and he won’t be the last. It’s hard to blame them, a lot of players will do whatever they can to win including breaking momentum whatever way they can. Instead of blaming Nadal the rulebook deserves a long hard look. My suggestion is that players can only take injury time outs on their serve. If they wish to take one at any other time I think they should have to forfeit their opponent’s service game. It would reduce the number of time-outs as players could no longer use it to break momentum so effectively. Anyone seriously injured probably wouldn’t be too concerned about dropping that one game. In the meantime, players will have to get better at keeping their focus in this situation. It certainly won’t be the last time it’s used this Wimbledon.