During the 2015 season Rafa Nadal faced some struggles with his game, after he had missed significant time due to injury. Coming into the clay season at Monte Carlo, Nadal decided to use a new prototype racket frame in tournament play for the first time in many years. That Babolat pro stock racket (the racket presented in this lot) theoretically was to give Nadal more power and spin, but sacrifice some control. Nadal debuted the racket at the Monte-Carlo Masters, with success. He achieved strong wins over Lucas Pouille, John Isner, and David Ferrer, but was ultimately defeated in the semifinal by Novak Djokovic. Nadal continued using the racket for one more tournament at the Barcelona Open, but returned to his usual frame at the Madrid Open. While the racket had a short stint in tournament play, it signified a memorable moment of experimentation in Nadal's relentless pursuit of adaptation and improvement. 

This racket was never available for retail sale in any form and was only produced for Nadal. It features a "Rafa" emblem on the base of the racket head, a Babolat customization sticker reading "R. NADAL 03-2015," and Rafa's signature grip size of 4 1/4 (2).