Rafael Nadal has once again criticized the stricter version of the time-violation rule that was implemented last year.
Nadal was twice called for a time violation during his third-round match in Monte Carlo against Teimuraz Gabashvili, and shook his finger at umpire Pascal Maria after being called when serving at 30-40, 4-0 in the second set.
Afterwards, the Spaniard said the umpire should have looked at the situation and allowed the players to take longer.
"I need to check the video today. Sometimes I am the first one to accept the things. Today I cannot accept this one because was after a very long rally, [it] was break point against," said Nadal. "The umpire, that I consider a good umpire like Pascal, was not right."
The world No. 1 admitted that he often takes longer than the 25 seconds allowed between points but said the umpire was overdoing it in this instance. Players receive a warning on the first call, and for subsequent calls lose a first serve or receiving point.
"I need to change. I need to go quicker a lot of times. I know that. I am the first one who tries that, the first one who accept when I am wrong, when I am playing bad, when I am not doing the right things, when I am too slow," he said.
"At the same time I think when the things are not right, I never have any problem to say that things are not like this. My feeling today, the way that the match develops, was not the right day to have two warnings for me. No one chance that that happen, no? Is because the umpire really wanted to do."
He added that if the 25-second rule was enforced without discretion and calls were rarely overruled due to Hawk-Eye, umpires were becoming redundant.
"If you want to make the things that way, the easier thing is put the 'chrono' on court and we don't need umpires anymore because we have all the lines. We can put the Hawk-Eye here," said Nadal. "Why we doing to have the umpires anymore? We can have the electronic, like we have, scoreboard and we can see 15-30. We don't need nobody that is just saying '15-30,' '30-30,' 'game Nadal' or 'game Gabashvili.' That is my feeling.
"If the umpires are not any more ready to understand [the situation] a little bit [during] the match, so there is no job anymore for them."
Nadal had also had problems with his serving routine this week because of his shorts, which have pockets too small to hold a ball for a second serve. Nadal has instead been asking ball boys for another ball when hitting a second serve.