LONDON, July 4, 2016
Memories of John McEnroe and Jeff Tarango revived during the first week of the All England Championships at Wimbledon, as some some epic tirades took place involving players, chair umpires as well as coaches.
Feliciano López rallied back from two sets down on Friday to beat Fabio Fognini in the second round and left the court fuming and yelling at the Italian’s coach José Perlas, who allegedly insulted the Spaniard during the match.
“There’s nothing wrong between me and Fabio, it’s just that his coach, all of a sudden, when I won the third set, he just said something to me, in Spanish, something very rude. I don’t know why,” a baffled López said after his win. “This has never happened to me in 20 years that the coach of my opponent insulted me during the match.”
Fognini refused to comment on the situation when asked by reporters in both English and Spanish.
25th seed Viktor Troicki was punished for his tirade against chair umpire Damiano Torella at the end of a five-set loss in the second round on Thursday.
“Worst umpire ever in the world! What are you doing? Did you see the ball?” the Serb screamed, also telling Torella, “You’re horrible!”
The first outburst took place in the third set, when Troicki was serving for the set. The second and even worse after a call as Troicki’s opponent, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, served for the match at 5-3 in the final set. At 30-30, Ramos-Vinolas hit a serve that initially was called out by a linesman behind Troicki. It was not clear, exactly, who changed that ruling, but Torella announced the score had become 40-30, crediting Ramos-Vinolas with an ace and pushing him to match point.
Later, speaking to a small group of reporters, Troicki said about Torella: “He has no experience, no knowledge about anything. He’s just sitting there, calling the score, not trying to watch the ball. He should be also fined, if you ask me,” Troicki said about the chair umpire. The Serbian was fined $10,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct
“He should be the one who’s fined. I’m not saying he cost me the match, but he cost me an important point, which could have changed the outcome of the match,” he added.
Serena Williams was also fined $10,000 on Saturday for unsportsmanlike conduct when she smashed her racket repeatedly against the turf after dropping the first set against fellow US-American Christina McHale in her second round match on Centre Court on Friday.
