After a five-hour 24-minute battle, Rafael Nadal’s extraordinary resilience brought out the best in one of sport’s fiercest competitor. Keeping up with his moves at the Australian Open was the watch on his right wrist. As the champion maintained a frantic pace, it was almost impossible to decipher what he was sporting on the wrist, except the lagoon-blue strap complimenting the watch’s orange and red accents.
A closer inspection unveils the Richard Mille RM 27-04. One of the few players to wear a watch during a match, the RM 27-04 was created to mark the 10th anniversary of the partnership between Nadal and the Swiss luxury brand.
Needless to say, it’s expensive — literally a million-dollar watch — and it has been made keeping the Spaniard in mind. This is not a smartwatch but a very smart-looking watch. Richard Mille used a steel cable and strung it back and forth across the watch’s dial to represent the design of a tennis racquet.
Nadal and Richard Mille go back a long way. In 2010, Nadal defeated Robin Soderling to win his fifth French open title. On his wrist was the RM 027 Tourbillon. A couple of years before that, he was in two minds about wearing a watch because it may get in the way of swings. RM 027 gave the concept of lightness a new meaning, ensuring it doesn’t come in the way of extreme movements and also handle the shocks typical of high-level tennis matches. The baseplate of the RM 027 Tourbillon is made from titanium and LITAL alloy (a high lithium content alloy containing aluminum, copper, magnesium and zirconium, possessing a density of 2.55).
At this year’s Australian Open it was the RM 27-04, which weighs just 30g (including the strap). The baseplate and bridges are crafted from grade 5 titanium, a biocompatible, highly corrosion-resistant and remarkably rigid alloy, which guarantees the perfect functioning of the gear train. Suspended in 855 square millimeter net is the caliber RM27-04 movement, a tourbillon-equipped, manually-wound movement that has been fully skeletonized and can be seen from either side featherweight case.
With a total production run of just 50 units, it can make your wallet $1,050,000 lighter. Last year, Drake was also seen wearing the same watch at a July 4 party.
From the world of sports, Brazilian racing driver Felipe Massa was the first to join the Richard Mille family in 2004 while Nadal in 2010. “We had to convince some of them, which meant explaining our concepts — materials, design, shock- and stress-resistance, and more. The partnerships we make are based not just on choosing a sport. It also depends on the person and their personality. I have to be inspired by them, too. I don’t just try to collect a batch of sports personalities in order to be involved in the world of sports. Without interaction with a sports personality, we can’t create something spectacular for and with them,” the brand’s co-founder Richard Mille has told Hodinkee earlier this year.
