Serving at 5-4, 15-15 in the third set of his extraordinary slugathon with the Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu, Nadal walked to his chair on center court, sat down and called for medical help. He held up a banana peel and pointed with concern at his neck.
As the French fans buzzed and offered up a few whistles of disapproval at the defending champion's keeping their man on tenterhooks, the trainer Per Bastholt came to his side, soon followed by the tournament's medical director, Bernard Montalvan.
Nadal, it turned out, had eaten the banana with a few swigs of water on the previous changeover, and he was sensing that one piece of it was lodged in his throat.
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"I didn't want to stop, because I was worried that it might look bad and that people might think I was doing it on purpose," he said. "It was an important part of the match. But after a little while it started to bother me. I was starting to feel nervous and scared. I had a strange sensation. I preferred to stop before I had a big problem."
