Do you remember the time Ben Stiller was called to play doubles with Rafael Nadal during an exhibition match in Madison Square Garden and suffered defeat at the hands of a kid?
Well, Stiller does.
The Severance star spoke to Jimmy Fallon about the gloriously tragic ordeal on Monday night, recounting the time in 2013 when Nadal was playing Juan Martin del Potro when they stopped the match to recruit members of the crowd to join them. Nadal chose Stiller. Their crowdsourced opponent? A child.
“About halfway through the match, Nadal stops and he goes, ‘Wait, should we make it doubles?'” Stiller explains. “He pulls me out of the crowd, which is…a dream come true to be in Madison Square Garden and people start cheering, and also, it’s this nightmare that’s happening simultaneously. Because I realise I really don’t play tennis.”
Things got real when Del Potro picked his tiny doubles partner. “Immediately I just died inside because I knew there was no way to get out of this thing alive,” said Stiller. “Because if I hit a winner on the eight-year-old girl everybody hates me. And I don’t have enough skill to hold it back because I’m just all or nothing. So Nadal serves it, the eight-year-old-girl hits it back perfectly across, the crowd cheers! Comes to me? Boom, right into the net. Immediately, just like all of Madison Square Garden: ‘Uggghhhhhh.'”
This happened every time, Stiller explained. “Del Potro puts the girl on his shoulders and they’re cheering and she walks off,” said Stiller. “I didn’t make eye contact with Nadal, my wife, anybody.”
“I want a rematch.”
