Rafael Nadal is a fount of quirks, rituals and idiosyncrasies. While they may look like superstitious peculiarities to an outsider, Nadal insists they’re mechanisms to help him focus on tennis. Here’s a definitive list of Nadal’s 19 tennis tics.
1. Walks on court with a single racket in hand.
2. Crosses lines with his right foot only (and never steps on them if he can avoid it).
3. When arriving on court, places bag down on bench, turns tournament ID face up.
4. The picking, of course.
5. Makes opponent and chair umpire wait as he prepares for warmups.
6. Takes off jacket while jumping.
And always faces the stands, to give the people what they want.
7. Hands off the recovery drink to a ballboy for safe refrigeration.
(They’re still waiting.)
8. Eats his energy gel, always the same way:
Rip off top, fold side over, coax gel up with four gentle squeezes.
9. Jumps at the net during the coin toss.
10. Runs to the baseline for warmups.
11. Scans the crowd to find his family.
12. Always takes a cold shower before the match.
He writes about the routine in his 2011 autobiography, Rafa:
Freezing cold water. I do this before every match. It’s the point before the point of no return. Under the cold shower I enter a new space in which I feel my power and resilience grow.
I’m a different man when I emerge. I’m activated. I’m in “the ﬂow”, as sports psychologists describe a state of alert concentration in which the body moves by pure instinct, like a ﬁsh in a current. Nothing else exists but the battle ahead.
13. Goes to the towel after every point.
14. Waits for players to cross on changeovers (then steps over the line with the right).
15. He sips the recovery drink.
16. Then sips the water, always in the same order.
17. Then he places them ever-so-delicately in the same exact positions.
Nadal describes this particular ritual:
“I put the two bottles down at my feet, in front of my chair to my left, one neatly behind the other, diagonally aimed at the court. Some call it superstition, but it’s not. If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.”