Although successful with ongoing tweaks, we’ve seen how divisive the introduction of VAR has been for football recently. Tennis needs something similar, all year-round, as the teething problems clear on clay – the biggest being incorrect line calls – continue to surface but the sport’s decision-makers would be wise to implement more transparent accountability for umpires too.
Umbrage at umpires as drama never far
DAMIEN DUMUSOIS. Carlos Bernardes. Fergus Murphy. They say the clearest sign of success in a referee or umpire’s performance is that you wouldn’t mention them, nor be able to confidently recall their names the way I’ve just rattled off three here.
The first two have found themselves in the centre of some rather dubious decisions this week, involving former world no. 1 Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune.
The former was fortunate to shrug it off and emerge a straight-sets winner against Gael Monfils, though another incident came at precisely the wrong time deep in set two against US Open semifinalist Karen Khachanov and the Russian fell short.
Rune found himself in a similar situation against the in-form figure of Jannik Sinner, crowd firmly behind the Italian, and gestured at them to stop barking his way after correctly being warned for taking too long before starting his service motion.
Dumusois took exception to the Dane engaging with the crowd, goading them almost, and gave another warning for ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ before the youngster predictably stopped playing altogether. It was an unnecessary intervention given the fraught circumstances and merely fanned the flames.
“I want to see the supervisor, I didn’t say any bad words… I told them to be quiet,” he protested. While his defence was justifiable in the heat of the moment, the Frenchman would never overturn that decision even in the presence of a confused match referee – so belabouring the point only served to distract him further.
Match referees are limited on-court and they truthfully do little in these situations, usually siding with the umpire’s decision and explaining the reasoning behind a decision to an unhappy player – acting as a buffer when tensions are heated.
Aurélie Tourte, the ATP’s first full-time female umpire, is generally regarded as the gold standard and while umpires are still only human, there’s increased scrutiny on their shoulders when most of the decisions they make often influence a period in matches when momentum switches without warning and quite quickly too.
Electronic calls have made line judges’ job obsolete at most major events and while the use of Hawkeye technology isn’t universal just yet, all the evidence supports the implementation of such sooner rather than later – it’s not as difficult as claimed.
Meanwhile, Rune looked almost vindicated after saving two match points in the tiebreaker to force a deciding set, though lost 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3 as Sinner picked up where he left off at Turin’s ATP Finals in November and steadied himself well.
Speaking of, the world number two will face another man he met in last season’s year-end championships as Stefanos Tsitsipas – physically compromise at times and struggling for recent form – has been energised on a different surface this week with straight-set victories over Stefanos Tsitsipas and Khachanov among them.
Picture source: Getty Images
Mo and Sports 