American Tennis Legend Once Blasted ‘Annoying Habits’ of Certain Players While Citing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s Epic Battle as a Brutal Example

Sweating profusely is a part and parcel of almost every sport. But, what if that interferes with game time or the spectators’ interest in the sport? Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a common practice in tennis for players to ask for towels mid-game or after every point. As tennis does not have a fixed match time, matches that go on for hours can take away interest from viewers. Constant towel usage definitely adds to that. Talking about the same in 2020 with Rennae Stubbs, Martina Navratilova remembers a final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in which the two players barely used a towel.

The 2008 Wimbledon final is regarded as one of the greatest matches in the history of the sport. Federer lost the first two sets of the match but came back and won set number three and four. However, Nadal emerged victorious in the final set to win his first Wimbledon title after finishing runner-up in 2006 and 2007.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal barely used towels during their epic SW19 final

Roger Federer started a trend when the covid-19 lockdown. The challenge was to see how many times a person could bounce a ball off of a wall with a racket. Rennae Stubbs, on her own beat, performed the challenge in 2020. She uploaded the video of her attempt on Twitter, which prompted a user to comment about the virus.

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The user said that her attempt was great but wanted her to talk about players asking the ball boys/girls to fetch them their towels. It prompted Stubbs to start a whole new conversation about towel usage during matches. She tweeted players should not ask for towels after every point by giving the example of players in the 1990s who barely asked for towels. Martina Navratilova agreed with the Australian coach, saying that she remembers the Wimbledon 2008 final in which the two did not use towels at all and that the new habit was annoying.

“Agree!!!! Even the classic 2008 Wimbledon final between Rafa and Roger nobody used a towel and only took two balls… very annoying new habits that so many are copying,” were Navratilova’s exact words the tweet.

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The towel usage of players has come into discussions a few times prior to this conversation on Twitter. Stefanos Tsitsipas discussed fetching his own towels during the 2020 US Open and once during the 2018 Next Gen ATP Finals tournament. A new rule was introduced in the tournament, which required the players to get the towels themselves. Tsitsipas was not happy with the rule and spoke against it after his first round win.

Now that the pandemic has forced both the ATP and the WTA Tours to enforce a strict ‘fetch your own towels’ rule for the players, has that impacted the matches? Or do you think the rule change was long overdue? Let us know in the comments.