Last weekend’s first-round Davis Cup tie between Great Britain and Canada could not have ended in more bizarre fashion. In the decisive fifth rubber, Canada’s Denis Shapovalov was defaulted in the third set for smacking a ball in frustration that torpedoed right into the chair umpire’s eye.
Shapovalov trailed Kyle Edmund by two sets to love and had just been broken at 1-1 in the third. The 17-year-old clearly had no intention of hitting umpire Arnaud Gabas, but Gabas proved to be the ball’s target.
Shapovalov gets defaulted:
“I went back and spoke to the [umpire] and apologized directly to him,” Shapovalov said. “Luckily he’s OK, but obviously it’s just unacceptable behavior from me. To be honest, I just feel incredibly ashamed and embarrassed and I just feel awful for letting my team down and my country down for acting a way that I would never want to act. I can promise that that’s the last time I will do anything like that.”
late, but must be discussed
Clearly unintentional, but really stupid. He apologized and was fined a hefty amount.
Unfortunately, fines and penalization’s are not uniform, if that was Nick, he would have been suspended.
I think there needs to be uniform penalties and fines for misconduct, racket breaking, etc.
I also think there needs to be two punching bags at the end of each side where players can vent their frustrations and not hurt anybody.
A lesson this kid will never forget.
has it been announced that he won’t be suspended?
all I heard was a fine.
$7,000 fine. Which is a lot for a kid, but chump change for a top ranked player like Fed or Djokovic (both guilty of “ball abuse” recently, no action taken), assuming they ever were fined.
There’s rules in place but they aren’t enforced until a player’s tantrum results in harm, even though it’s unintentional.
Feel really bad for him. Hope he shakes this off well.
same
Rules should be enforced more often,such as point penalties for stalling between points and racquet abuse.Too many warnings
I hope the guys eye is OK
Tom Tebbutt (tennis writer for Tennis Canada based in Toronto) : “…returning from Ottawa, umpire Arnaud Gabas had tests that showed an orbital bone fracture – and he had surgery.”
https://twitter.com/tomtebbutt/status/830626674588975104
Feel bad for both Arnaud Gabas and Shapovalov.
Agree with Ramara: Any conduct on court that could potentially do harm or injury should be given a warning and a fine; and if repeated anytime in the future…the player is fined, loses the match, and is suspended. No exceptions made for Nole, Federer, or anyone.
In Shapovalov’s case, we’ll see… but his actions directly after and statement of apology at the time makes me think he’s truly going to make sure it never happens again.
I didn’t know that the umpire needed surgery after this injury. I hope that he will be fine and recover completely.
This kid should feel bad and hopefully learned a lesson. It’s one thing to let off steam and frustration in a match, but players have to think about what they are doing.