Rafael Nadal faces $20,000 fine for slow play.getty images
Rafael Nadal advanced to the third round with a straight-sets victory against Mikhail Kukushkin but the world No. 1 could be fined up to $20,000 after he was given two time violation warnings by Carlos Bernardes, the chair umpire with whom "he has a long history of disagreements," according to Charlie Scott of the LONDON TIMES. Before the match, Bernardes called time for the end of the warmup on Centre Court but Nadal "hit four more serves before walking to his chair." Kukushkin was back on court and ready to play within the allocated 60 seconds, but Nadal "stayed in his chair until about ten seconds after that limit." The 32-year-old, who denied any knowledge of the first warning, was given a second for not being ready to start the third set when Kukushkin was waiting to serve. He said, "I had to take the wristband, T-shirt, bandana out, change everything. Probably I should go to toilet. If I go to the toilet, I had plenty of time to change everything without the time violation." In '15, he admitted to having asked the ATP for Bernardes to be taken off his matches after a dispute at the Rio Open. At the time, Nadal said, "I consider him [Bernardes] a great umpire and a good person, but I think when you have some troubles with the same umpire, sometimes it's easy to stay for a while away, no?" (LONDON TIMES, 7/6).
'QUITE UNNECESSARY': In London, Simon Briggs wrote Novak Djokovic had "some hard words for the Centre Court crowd" after his four-set victory over British No. 1 Kyle Edmund featured a "few testy exchanges with the fans." You "could sense the crowd’s impatience during Djokovic’s never-ending bouncing of the ball," and when chair umpire Jake Garner gave him a time violation in the middle of the third set, the stands "erupted in a mixture of cheers and boos, followed by a slow hand clap." Djokovic said, "I thought the crowd's reaction after that [the time violation] was quite necessary. A couple guys pretending they were coughing and whistling while I was bouncing the ball more or less to the end of the match at that end where I received the time violation. Those are the things obviously that people don't get to see or hear on the TV. I just think it's not necessary. That's what I didn't like" (TELEGRAPH, 7/7).
