On-Court Tennis Etiquette
Anyone who follows tennis these days knows that Rafael Nadal has many conscious and unconscious rituals that he follows when he’s playing. Most tennis players have their own patterns, but they have probably not generated the attention that a couple of Nadal’s have, e.g. pulling at his pants, fixing the water bottles. In his multi-day match against Robin Soderling at Wimbledon, things clearly got a little too personal at one point and
Soderling crossed a line that I honestly can’t ever remember being crossed by another player in the middle of a match, i.e. Soderling imitated Nadal’s pulling at his pants. There are plenty of matches in which things get a little heated between players and words are said, etc., but a player should never tease his opponent for a clearly uncontrollable tic such as when Nadal pulls at his pants. In the end, after completing a hard-fought five set match that stretched over five days, Soderling didn’t even look at Nadal when they shook hands at the net after the match. Soderling may have been upset at losing, but this final sleight to Nadal was also in poor taste. Rafael Nadal and the sport of tennis deserve better.
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