Toni Nadal on complaints about the bounce of the balls: "Excuses bother me"

Yesterday, Carlos Alcaraz suffered a harsh defeat against Zizou Bergs in the third round of the ATP Shanghai, in a match where he was unable to show the desired level at any moment and ended up complaining about the tournament balls. Although the Spanish tennis player had his reasons to raise his voice, and he was not the only one to do so, it is impossible not to remember the speech that Toni Nadal gave at the time about a similar situation with his nephew Rafa Nadal. 

During the match against Zizou, Carlos exploded against the tournament balls, complaining that they bounced differently each time, something he emphasized in the press conference, where Alcaraz blasted the balls of the ATP Shanghai. Other players like Taylor Fritz had already complained about the state of the balls, a problem that dates back to last year, although Bergs did not hesitate to respond to Alcaraz stating that the balls were the same as in the previous tournament.

These types of situations are not only experienced in the present, as they have been a common factor in different eras of the circuit. It also happened to Rafael Nadal at the time, which led to an anecdote that his uncle and coach Toni Nadal revealed in a conference. "Years ago we were at the US Open with Rafa and in that edition the balls did not take effect. We were playing and it was a disaster. Every day when we went to train he said, 'these balls don’t work for me. They don’t take effect.' The next day the same thing again. I’m very annoyed by excuses. He won his first match, the second, the third... but tired of hearing him, I told him, 'hey, what you need to do is lose, and then in Mallorca the balls will take effect.' He listened to me, he lost," joked the manacorí.

Nadal, champion in Beijing with the same balls he had complained about

However, the curious thing happened a few days later, as Toni remarked, "Rafa didn’t go to Mallorca, he went to Beijing, I went to Mallorca and then we met again in Naples. Interestingly, in Beijing he won the tournament, played very well, and I knew the balls he was playing with in that tournament. The same ones from the US Open. When I saw him, I asked him what balls he was using and he somewhat embarrassedly told me he was using Wilson. 'What a coincidence, in Beijing they take effect but in New York they don’t', I told him." 

Toni's premise is that the conditions of the court and the balls are for both players, although it is true that sometimes it benefits one player more than the other. Still, it is uncommon to see Alcaraz so frustrated with a factor that does not depend on him, which was an isolated case during the week. Nadal complained continuously, but the Murcian told his bench that he felt good in his debut and during training, and that suddenly everything changed in his match against Bergs. 

Samu López and the rest of the team, far from worsening the situation, tried to calm the storm of negative thoughts of the Spaniard and encourage him to play his game and not to focus on external factors, but it was not enough. It should also be noted that Carlos had just won Beijing and had little rest, which may have contributed to that short circuit. Many factors help to better understand the context of a case that is more common in tennis than it seems and that must be learned to normalize, as not every day is rosy for players.

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Toni Nadal, sobre las quejas por el bote de las bolas: "Me molestan las excusas"