Lost, not found: When Nadal left his 2005 ATP Mexico trophy in a car

Rafael Nadal won the ATP Mexico title in Acapulco last week, making it a hat-trick of victories in the arena. He has won the tournament twice in the past: In 2005 and 2013. In fact, the 2005 title was just the third ATP win of his career. You’d think he’d be cherishing it to date. Turns out, he doesn’t even have the trophy.

“So that year, who knows why, we decided to go partying after the final. The next day, we had to take a flight because I had to go to Slovakia for the Davis Cup,” he told the media recently. “For some reason, we decided to drive from here to CDMX [Mexico City]. There the traffic was horrible and we were very late. We almost missed the flight. But when we left the car, we were in a hurry, without thinking. We left the trophy there and never found it.”

Of course, Nadal has since gone on to win 82 more titles. So one could say he’s got the liberty to be careless with the trophies.