With serves that can exceed 200kmh, Spanish tennis ace Rafael Nadal (pictured) – who most recently bagged his 16th Grand Slam at the 2017 US Open – is one hard-hitting player.
Whether he’s on top or nursing an injury, he has always made headlines for his game, but, since 2010, plenty of incredulous ink has also been devoted to the fact that he wears tourbillon watches with six-digit price tags while playing.This year, Richard Mille introduced the 7th timepiece specially designed in collaboration with Nadal, the RM 27-03. Among its chief distinctive qualities: its lightness, with a weight of 34g. That’s about seven pieces of paper. The bright red-and-yellow case of this watch (a nod to Spain’s national colours) is made from Quartz TPT – an ultra-light and tough material comprising tinted resin, and ultra-thin layers of silica filaments angled at 45 degrees to each other. This incredible lightness, which characterises all the watches bearing Nadal’s name, is what convinced the tennis pro to agree, all those years ago, to wear Mille’s watches on the court.
Despite its weight (or lack thereof ), the RM 27-03 has record-breaking impact resistance. It can survive forces of up to 10,000g’s – a quality that keeps its tourbillon movement safe when Nadal executes one of his powerful double-handed backhand returns. This is partly made possible by the watch’s “unibody” construction that sees the base plate double as a case band, with the bezel and case back directly mounted on the base plate. According to Richard Mille, such shock-resistant features were made possible by “countless hours of testing, particularly ‘pendulum impact testing’, which simulates the linear acceleration that occurs due to sudden movements or shock to the wearer”. But we’d say the best tester is Nadal himself, who has apparently broken several costly prototypes while training. It’s just part of the brand’s ongoing quest to make ever lighter and stronger time pieces that can perform at the same high level as their namesake.
