Marc Polmans, a tennis player from Australia, was disqualified for accidentally hitting the umpire with the ball in his qualifying match for the ATP Tour 1000 Shanghai Masters.
Polmans was extremely angry after wasting his second opportunity to win the match in a grueling two-hour and 34-minute fight against Italian player Stefano Napolitano.
In the match, with a score of 7-6 (7-3) and 6-6 (6-6), he made a mistake by hitting the ball into the net. The ball then rebounded towards him and he aggressively struck it, causing it to hit British official Ben Anderson in the face.
A similar situation occurred in 2017 when Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov was involved in a Davis Cup match against Great Britain.
During that incident, the umpire, Arnaud Gabas, sustained a fractured eye socket. Fortunately, Anderson seems to have avoided any major injuries as a representative from the tournament stated that he was hit on the cheek and nose and had gone back to his hotel to rest.
Polmans, the world no 140, will not take home any prize money or ranking points earned during qualifying, having won his first match against Alibek Kachmazov.
Possible rewording: Additional consequences may occur. Nick Kyrgios, commenting on his own fine of almost A$30,000, shared on X (previously known as Twitter): “Curious to know the penalty. Taking into account everything, 15 thousand pounds for the bottle shake at Queens.”
Polmans, who is 26 years old, was among the seven Australians who advanced to the second and final round of qualifying. Four of them successfully made it to the main draw, bringing the total number of Australian players in the opening round to 7.
Top seed in qualifying Rinky Hijikata took just 80 minutes to see off Benjamin Lock of Zimbabwe 6-1, 6-4, while James Duckworth also enjoyed a straight-sets victory, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 over fellow Australian James McCabe.
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Dane Sweeny, ranked 256th in the world, won 6-2, 6-1 against Seongchan Hong from South Korea. Philip Sekulic, ranked 292nd, defeated Arthur Weber from France 6-4, 6-3.
Unfortunately, Luke Saville was defeated by Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin with a score of 6-3, 6-3. Li Tu also put up a strong fight against American Aleksandar Kovacevic, but ultimately lost in three sets with a score of 2-6, 7-6 (10-8), 5-7.
Due to their rankings, Alex de Minaur, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jordan Thompson, Alexei Popyrin, Max Purcell, Chris O’Connell and Aleksandar Vukic all opted out of participating in the qualifying round.
World No 2 Carlos Alcaraz will make his Shanghai debut later in the week, while defending champion from 2019 Daniil Medvedev, Holger Rune, Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner and Stefanos Tsitsipas are also among the field.
Source: theguardian.com
