Nadal's anger with the chair umpire for a towel and Xisca's tears

Nadal could not compete.

He tried but the pain made it impossible and

, Nadal's wife, collapsed in the Melbourne stands.

Some tears captured by the cameras that broadcast the game, and that are going around the world as a sports funeral for a star who seems to be living his last days on the track.

, did not look better

, witness like everyone else to a desperate and sore Rafa, who in the middle of the first set, and with 1-4 against on the scoreboard, took it on with the chair umpire.

Once again, for the towel war.

Rafa had already complained in the previous match against

: "We need someone to bring us the towels, they are very far away. Why can't the ball boys bring us the towels?"

The answer is that since the pandemic the ball boys no longer run at full speed to deliver them, as usual, when the players asked for it.

Now they are the ones who must go for them at both ends of the track.

The problem is that Nadal needed, and especially today, a little more than the

, if he also had to go for the towel.

For the chair umpire to start up the counter even before she saw Nadal walking to the corner for his towel, she riled him up.

"The towel is there and I always see the clock that follows 5, 4... With you it's always the same... It doesn't matter," Nadal complained to a judge who preferred to remain calm before a player who, in addition to not things would go wrong trying to stay on track against what his hip was telling him.

After losing in the first set, and with 3-3 in the second, Rafa Nadal repeated the argument again, but this time the chair umpire defended her criteria, and the criticism was not repeated until he was eliminated against

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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• Rafael Nadal

• Articles Ricardo F. Colmenero