It’s been a while now that timepieces have been constantly in the forefront of the biggest tennis stages around the world. In addition to the traditional clocks in the corners of the major stadiums, displaying local time and the duration of the matches, many of the best players on the planet are endorsing prestigious watch brands – and putting on a sponsored timepiece right after a match and just before the televised on-court interview has become one of the most predictable rituals. Of course, if a player is already wearing a watch that ritual isn’t even necessary – and there have been more and more champions playing with a watch on their wrists.
This past weekend, the 102nd edition of the Australian Open offered us the first Grand Slam final ever between two players wearing a watch. One of them has been in the watchmaking spotlight for four years already: Rafael Nadal – who since the inception of his association with Richard Mille in 2010 had won seven Grand Slams with a hi-tech, hi-mech tourbillon on his right wrist – was vying for a 14th Grand Slam trophy that would tie him with Pete Sampras as the second most prolific Major title winner ever. The other was a talented late bloomer whose resurgence at the top coincided precisely with the use of a timepiece on his left wrist: Switzerland’s own Stanislas Wawrinka.
Time for success
Somewhat against the odds and after an eerie match, ‘Stan the Man’ beat the Spanish world number one and went on to become only the second player in the last nine years outside the so-called ‘Big 4’ (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray) to win one of the ‘Big 4’ (the Grand Slams), also becoming the the first man in two decades to beat both of the top two seeds at a Grand Slam tournament. Moving to No. 3 in the rankings, the player from Lausanne also surpassed his friend Roger and is the top Swiss player right now.
Why this late resurgence at the highest level? Believe it or not, it all started when Stanislas Wawrinka decided to play with a watch on his wrist. He’d previously been a friend of small Zurich brand Maurice de Mauriac early on in his career and afterwards endorsed Hublot for a while, but it was when he recently became a friend of Audemars Piguet that he started playing with a watch on. And it was exactly last year at the Australian Open that the Lausanne player began to make a big impression: wearing an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph Bumblebee (featuring Audemars Piguet’s lightweight forged carbon), he took then world number one and Audemars Piguet ambassador Novak Djokovic to the limit, losing an epic 5-hour match that captured the imagination of the fans and was later voted the best match of the year.
Going toe-to-toe with Novak Djokovic until 12-10 in the fifth set gave Stanislas Wawrinka the belief he belonged to the elite. A few months later he beat Bovet ambassador David Ferrer in the final of the Portugal Open wearing the same Royal Oak Offshore Bumblebee, but during the summer changed to another timepiece; it was wearing a Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph new generation (44mm) that he qualified for his first Grand Slam semifinal ever at the US Open, again losing to Novak Djokovic in five sets, and for his first Year-End Championships, going through the group stage and losing to Novak Djokovic in the semis yet again.
Black watch, bête noire
In the beginning of the year, Stan – who knows I’m both a tennis and watch journalist – sent me a dedicated wristshot via Twitter from Chennai, where he was playing his first ATP World Tour tournament of the year: there was something new on his wrist, namely a Royal Oak Offshore Diver in black ceramics with orange touches. He won the tournament with it on and it was the watch he was wearing in his first round at the Australian Open. But something changed after that inaugural match in Melbourne Park: I was commentating for Eurosport and noticed he played the second round with a bare left wrist and then reverted to the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph 44mm for the following matches – including the fourth round duel versus Tommy Robredo that finished right on time for me not to lose the flight to attend the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie; in Geneva, Audemars Piguet’s CEO François-Henry Bennahmias explained to me that there had been a problem with the strap, hence the change.
Stanislas Wawrinka was back wearing the lightweight Royal Oak Offshore Diver for his quarter-final rendezvous with Novak Djokovic, who prior to the tournament had announced that Seiko had replaced Audemars Piguet as his watch sponsor – the Japanese brand made the Serb a seven-figure offer he couldn’t refuse. Just like Federer, Ferrer, Sharapova, Azarenka and most watch ambassadors, Djokovic doesn’t play official tournaments with his timepiece on – only exhibition matches or in practice. In the end, ‘Stanimal’ (as his friend Federer affectionately calls him) exorcized a losing 14-match streak versus Novak with an epic 5-set win and then beat Tomas Berdych (the Czech that Wawrinka rates as the best watch connoisseur among tennis pros, albeit not having a sponsorship) in the semis to qualify for the final versus Rafael Nadal, who had beaten Roger Federer in the other semi.
Stan has always been a great ballstriker and his majestic one-handed backhand made him a cult player, but he's been understandably obscured by the ominous shadow of Roger Federer in Switzerland. Mentally, his reputation was a bit shaky at the highest level: coming into Melbourne Park, he had lost 39 of his last 40 matches to the trio of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. His time was due, since he not only surpassed Roger in the rankings, but also beat Novak and Rafa for the first time on his way to the title.
The Royal Oak Offshore Diver and the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph weren’t the only Audemars Piguet timepieces he sported at the Australian Open; in press conferences he showed the sporty elegance of the Royal Oak Chronograph on a metal bracelet and that was his choice to pose with the trophy in the photo session held in Melbourne the day after the most significant achievement of his career. To date.
New RM 35-01 for Rafa
Rafael Nadal didn’t win the title, but he will have yet another Richard Mille timepiece under his name, though he’ll keep on playing with the RM 27-01 Tourbillon. Unveiled recently at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, the RM 35-01 (with the inscription ‘Rafa’ on the dial) has a carbon case manufactured using the NTPT® technology, consisting of several layers of parallel filaments of carbon of a thickness of 30 microns, providing exceptional rigidity and unique aesthetics through the undulating shapes and random visual identity. The Calibre RMUL3 powering the RM 35-01 is a skeleton manual winding 4-gram (!) movement with hours, minutes, & seconds, providing exceptional resistance to impacts through the use of titanium grade 5 black PVD throughout the movement, as proven in extensive testing under extreme conditions and 5000 G impacts.
But there were more watch tales at the Australian Open. Serena Williams showed up playing with the ladies’ version of the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph that was presented to her during the Art Basel event organized by Audemars Piguet in Miami last December – and though the world number one lost in the fourth round to Rolex’s Ana Ivanovic, she won another kind of prize: the most frequently asked question related to watches on the internet; everyone wanted to know which timepiece Williams was wearing!
Clairvoyant timekeeper
As official timekeeper of the Australian Open, Rolex had a good tournament: ambassador Li Na won the women’s title and projected even further the fame of the brand in China, whereas global icon Roger Federer made it back to the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the first time in a year. But a strange episode surfaced in the middle of the tournament: the Rolex ad in the official website of the Australian Open precociously congratulated ambassador Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for winning the title (he ended up losing to Federer in the 4th round) and, when the error was discovered, it was replaced by another premature ad congratulating Li Na for the win. At least they got that one right!
Finally, besides Rafael Nadal getting a time violation in the final for taking too long between points in spite of wearing a 625,000 euro timepiece, the most awkward moment of the Australian Open related to watches occurred in the press conference following the first semifinal. Knowing Tomas Berdych is a great aficionado, an intrepid reporter – not me! – used an analogy to ask him whether his performance at the tournament deserved a (self) reward: “You used to buy watches every time you had a big result here. Is this a watch-worthy tournament, making the semifinals?”; the big Czech didn’t like it: “This is really not part of a press conference right after the match. I have other feelings going through my mind and you come with a question like that. Really, I don’t know what to say about it”.
The next Grand Slam tournament will take place in Paris between May and June with Longines as the official timekeeper: Roland Garros.
