Cops find Nadal's R3m watch

Paris - Paris police have recovered a €300 000 (R3 156 000) watch stolen from Rafael Nadal at the hotel where he stayed during the French Open and arrested a hotel employee, a police source said on Wednesday.

The source said police tracked down the presumed thief, a hotel barman, on Tuesday after tracing his hotel access badge, which was used to access the room in which Nadal stayed with his parents during the championship.

He confessed to having entered Nadal's room and taken the luxury watch, and brought police to the spot where he had hidden it along a railway track near his home in the Essonne area south of Paris, the source said.

French media reported that luxury watchmaker Richard Mille had lent Nadal the watch for the French Open, which the Spanish tennis sensation won for a record seventh time on Monday, beating Serbia's Novak Djokovic.