Rafael Nadal revealed disrespect is at the root of his rift with chair umpire Carlos Bernardes.
The Brazilian umpire was in the chair as Nadal swept Mikhail Kukukshkin, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, today to charge into a Wimbledon third-round match with Aussie Alex de Minaur.
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Bernardes hit Nadal with a time violation before the match began for taking too long between the end of the warm-up and start of the opening game.
The two-time Wimbledon winner conceded the violation was warranted.
"Yeah, I was slow enough to receive a time violation. Yeah, I accepted," Nadal said. "That's all. I think I was very quick during the match. Between sets I needed that time to change all these stuff because was a very humid day, that's all. He could avoid, but he decided to make it, and I accept because, yeah, I was slow."
The 17-time Grand Slam champion's bad blood with Bernardes dates back to his 2015 Rio loss to Fabio Fognini, when the Italian snapped Nadal's 52-match winning streak in clay semifinals with a 1-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory at the Rio Open.
A frustrated Nadal suffered a wardrobe malfunction in that match when Bernardes declined the Spaniard's request to leave the court to change his sweat-soaked shorts. Nadal wound up covering himself with towels to change his shorts, which he initially put on backwards.
Nadal said the disrespect he felt from Bernardes created the rift.
"Is something that happened in the past," Nadal told the media at Wimbledon. "[It] is about what happened in Rio de Janeiro a couple years ago. For me personally was [disrespectful]. Not because of time violation. I can understand the time violations.
"I can't understand when I was wrong, I make a mistake, I put my shorts the other way. You cannot force me to change my shorts in front of everybody, you know. For me, that's not respectful. That was, one second, because I feel the pressure. We finish the match, so I don't need that."
Addressing reports he requested Bernardes not be assigned to his matches after the Rio wardrobe snafu, the 11-time Roland Garros champion insists he's never asked to exclude Bernardes from his matches. Nadal admits he has asked if another umpire was available instead of Bernardes.
"No problem with the umpire. I am nobody to say, I don't want him on my court," Nadal said. "I just can ask if I believe that somebody's not doing the things fair with me or was not respectful for me, I just can ask if is possible to have another umpire. I can't say, I don't want this umpire. I say, If is possible, I prefer another umpire on my court."
The reigning US Open champion said he has not complained about receiving repeated time violation warnings from the Brazilian chair umpire and is trying to speed up his pace of play.
"[It] Is not about the time. Is not about this kind of stuff," Nadal said. "Is about the problem that I had with him in the past. It's about that bad moment. That's all. No problems with him. I respect when I am slow, accept the warnings. I do my best to be quick."
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