Denis Shapovalov doesn’t go looking for trouble, the trouble usually finds this 25-year-old Canadian! After what had happened just a few days ago in Washington, he must be now wanting to forget all those things and make a fresh start in his next tournaments. Can he forget that incident, though? Shapovalov recently revealed that he’s still being haunted by that controversy which took place during his match against Ben Shelton at the QF of the Citi Open.

The Canadian tennis star was thrown from that match during the second-set tiebreaker for “swearing at a spectator“. As a result, Shelton won by 7-6(5), 6-6(3). He was later on also issued a code violation for unsportsmanlike behavior by the tournament supervisor. It all started when Shapovalov hit an unforced error, giving away the American three match points. He was so livid with himself that he repeatedly hurled his racquet onto the court. After that, he was also spotted getting engaged in a confrontation with a heckling spectator.

Reflecting on the whole scenario and its aftermath, Denis Shapovalor reiterated the whole saga during his recent press conference before the Canadian Open. He said, “It was definitely an interesting couple of days. First of all, I want to say it was extremely tough on me. I felt stressed afterward. You know I was having a tough time sleeping. It was a stressful couple of days for me.“

His default, in this case, would mean he would have lost all his ranking points and also the $53,240 prize money that he earned from this event. However, later on, the ATP released a statement confirming that the player would retain the points and prize money because they felt it was a “disproportionate penalty” for his offense.

However, he will now have to pay a fine of $36,400, which is quite similar to what happened with Andrey Rublev previously. Thankfully, for the Canadian tennis star, he would be able to retain his ranking points. How did the tennis world react to this action by ATP and is it the first time that Shapovalov is in the middle of all these troubles?

Renowned tennis journalist calls for a change in the disqualification rule after Denis Shapovalov incident

Denis Shapovalov looked a bit frustrated with the decision initially. He even pleaded to the officials, citing that the spectator had provoked him but the umpire looked unmoved by his plea. Then afterward when the Canadian tennis star came to know that his punishment had been reduced, he thanked the committee by yet again calling the initial decisions to be “unfair.” Ben Rothenberg has now also spoken about this incident and according to him, it’s time to look for a change in the disqualification rules.

The renowned tennis journalist questioned, “The ATP’s aversion to punishing players for breaking their rules is well established. Since the ATP doesn’t want to enforce this rule repeatedly this year, they should just change the rule?” Time will tell if this rule really gets changed in the future or not.

However, if we go back a little backward in time, we would see that the same player was once disqualified from the Davis Cup in 2017. Reason? Denis Shapovalov tried to hit a ball into the crowd in frustration but it ended up hitting the umpire, Arnaut Gabbas’ left eye. Result? The incident prompted a default and the umpire had to seek immediate medical attention. Although, Shapovalov apologized for his behavior later on, these types of incidents remain to haunt his image on the Tour!