ATP Estoril: Boisterous Crowd Furious Over Chair Umpire’s Bias for Cristian Garin Over Hometown Kid Nuno Borges

With the action shifting on clay, the red-soil season has got to quite an eventful start. Three ATP 250 tournaments are taking place this week, but a controversial moment at Estoril Open has caught tennis fans’ eyes. The incident happened while Cristian Garin was up against the home favorite, Nuno Borges.

While the two were involved in a fierce rally, someone from the crowd shouted out that led to the confusion. Play came to a halt as bizarre scenes erupted over who had won the point. Further, more drama erupted when the chair umpire wasn’t able to “remember the point at hand, costing Borges the break”, leading to furious reactions in the crowd.

In-between, the umpire also had to call on the supervisor as the confusion didn’t seem to end. Eventually, it went against Nuno Borges, who was unable to break Garin’s serve. The incident happened in the sixth game of the second set, which went for almost 20 minutes.

Subsequently, the set proceeded to the tiebreaker and it was Garin who had the last laugh, winning the set 7-6 (3) and eventually the match in straight sets. He is into the semifinals of the tournament and will take on Hubert Hurkacz in the last 4.

This is not the first incident involving the chair umpire in recent times. During the Indian Wells Masters, World Number 1, Novak Djokovic, was also involved in a heated argument with the chair umpire.

When Novak Djokovic did a Nuno Borges

Like Borges, Djokovic had a confusing call go against him during his match against Luca Nardi in Indian Wells. The Italian star stopped after it appeared that the ball had gone long, but managed to make a weak return over the net. However, Djokovic thought that the rally was over and seemingly stopped, only to find that the ball was still in play. By then, it was too late, which cost him the point.

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Approaching the chair umpire, Djokovic said, “What are you talking about? He literally stopped and that’s it. He confused me completely. I stopped as well. How can you not make that judgement? Are you kidding me or what?” The incident dampened Djokovic’s spirits and he eventually went on to lose the match in three sets.

While such moments go viral and invite strong reactions from fans, it is important that the tennis bodies make clear-cut rules to curb such types of incidents.