Wimbledon Rear View

Well it’s not everyone who gets invited to watch the finals at Wimbledon but yesterday I got lucky! A dear friend from TBW had 2 tickets and invited me to go with her to watch Nadal v Berdych in the finals. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and the occasional cotton-wool cloud floating by to watch the action on the grassy courts. We had access to the debenture section which meant a private roof top bar where Jonathan Ross was hanging out.

The view over London was amazing and first it chimed champagne o’clock and then soon after Pimms o’clock. Our seats were just near the royal box so we had a bird’s eye view of the match. What we did notice being so near the players is that Nadal certainly has a gluteus maximus. So much so in fact that he was pulling at the rear of his tight shorts between virtually every shot. It happened at such regular intervals that we concluded that Nike just didn’t do shorts in his size. We do think that Nike might have had a special pair made. After all they gave Michael Johnson a custom-designed pair of golden-coloured racing spikes causing him to be nicknamed “The Man With the Golden Shoes.” They surely could have given Rafa a custom-designed pair of bum-contoured tennis shorts causing him to be nicknamed “The Man With the Bum Contoured Shorts.”

We may have been wrong though. A little deeper research from an Australian site revealed it isn’t just this time:

“But watching more closely it soon became apparent Nadal’s obsessive compulsive bum groping actually formed part of a pre-serve routine that went something like this: drag foot along service line; straighten socks; tap left shoe with racquet; tap right shoe with racquet; grab bum; serve. The routine suggested his underpants weren’t uncomfortable at all – it was just a Spanish good luck tradition, like eating grapes at New Year’s, which fits nicely with his water bottle compulsion.

For those who don’t know: when Nadal plays he has two drink bottles in front of his chair, courtside. When he takes a sip from either between games, he spends an inordinate amount of time making sure he puts the bottle back on precisely the same spot. Then he makes sure both labels are facing his end of the court. Totally normal, right? Completely.

The funniest part about all this is that when asked about his strange habits during a press conference at the weekend, Nadal insisted (after tapping both shoes, straightening his socks, rotating his water bottles and grabbing his bum) that he wasn’t at all superstitious. “I always go to the same hotel, but that’s it.”

Really? So, what’s he telling us? His underpants are just uncomfortable after all? Believe it or not, someone actually brought it up at a press conference and Nadal reckon’s he constantly adjusting downstairs because his posterior is “a little bigger than usual”.

Well I’m sure some of our female members would be happy to run him up a pair of custom made shorts after a few fittings. After all a superior posterior deserves the best!

By Julia, TBW founder
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