Famous for being tennis’ final perfectionist, Rafael Nadal was visibly rattled when an Australian Open ball boy ran away along with his racquet.
The grand slam’s No. 1 seed survived a second set hiccup to maneuver via to the second spherical, defeating Englishman Jack Draper 7-5 2-6 6-4 6-1 outlasting the 21-year-old down the stretch.
But the match was stopped throughout a tense opening set when Nadal went to swap racquets, solely to understand it was not the place he’d left it on his court-side seat.
The Spanish legend stood bewildered and with palms outstretched earlier than telling the chair umpire “I need my racquet back”.
It seems Nadal had requested for a racquet to be re-stringed, however the ball boy had taken the mistaken one.
He then turned to Draper to, saying “the ball boy took my racquet” as he defined apologetically for the delay.
Nadal pulled one other racquet out of his bag and continued with the rating at 4-3 on serve within the first set.
It wasn’t the one time play was halted within the famous person’s opening match, with spits of rain forcing organisers to shut the roof, just for it to stay partially open as soon as the rain had stopped.
His four-set triumph was his 77th profession win as he targets a 3rd Australian Open title.
The weird scenes come after main Australian participant Nick Kyrgios pulled out of the match with a knee damage on a chaotic first morning for the depleted match.
