"For sure Rafa is playing with the rules" - Corretja and Clijsters defend Nadal from recent criticism

Kim Clijsters and Alex Corretja have defended Nadal from recent criticism about his time management after McEnroe pointed it out.

John McEnroe suggested that Rafael Nadal is getting preferential treatment from the umpires due to his time management habits which often should result in code violations. He doesn't get them as often because umpires usually let it slide if the oversteps by a second or so.

Clijsters and Alex Corretja didn't like that criticism defending him. Clijsters simply repeated Nadal's comment about it being a joke while Corretja went in detail a bit more:

Read also

2022 US Open ATP & WTA Prize Money Breakdown with record amount of over $60m

"What I hate is when [journalists] come to you and they say ‘someone said that they said…’ Be straight. This is poor. You’ve got to be straight if you make a statement - ‘I heard from John McEnroe..’ I don’t like that. For sure Rafa is playing with the rules, but umpires have the clock so that’s it.”

Clijsters and Corretja also agreed that players having to get their own towels complicates matters more because sometimes there is just not enough time to go through all the routines a player might have. It's a fair comment as it does take up several seconds more as opposed to the traditional way of ball kids bringing the towels.

Read also

2022 US Open ATP & WTA Day Four Schedule including Swiatek, Alcaraz, Nadal, Collins and more