Rafael Nadal keeps his bottle
NO matter how sore his knees are, no one could ever accuse Rafael Nadal of bottling it on a tennis court, not even when someone kicks over his water bottles.
Ever meticulous in the placement of the two bottles by the side of the court – both carefully in line with the labels facing the same way – Nadal is a creature of habit and superstition.
So when Marinko Matosevic found himself 6-1, 5-2 down in the second round of the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters, he did the only thing he could think of – he knocked Nadal’s bottles over before going to sit down.
It was not a pressure moment. It was a funny one. Maybe he thought that affects my concentration.
It didn’t work, though and a few moments later Nadal was back in the locker room after a 6-1, 6-2 win.
“It’s something that I’m not going to do to an opponent,” Nadal said with a grin.
“No, it was not a pressure moment. It was a funny one. Maybe he thought that affects my concentration. But that’s just simply routine for me, to be focused. The only thing I did was put the bottles back in the same place.”
It was Nadal’s first match in a month and he looked as if he had not missed a beat since winning the Indian Wells title.
Novak Djokovic beat Mikhail Youzhny 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, but was still struggling to recover from a sprained ankle
“I managed to beat the pain and was just happy to compete and to win,” said Djokovic.