Tennis upset: In Shanghai, Australian Polmans hit the ball towards the umpire out of anger and hit him. The penalty followed on the heels of the hit.
The Australian Marc Polmans caused an éclat in the qualification for the main round of the tennis tournament (Masters 1000) in Shanghai. After missing a match point against Stefano Napolitano, he fired the ball in the direction of the chair umpire – and hit him full in the face.
As a consequence, the match was stopped at 7:6 (7:3), 6:6 (6:5) for Polmans and he was disqualified. In addition, the 140th-ranked player in the world will not receive any prize money, which he had previously won in the qualification against Alibek Kachmazov.
Kyrgios speaks out
“It will be exciting to see how much the fine will be,” Polman’s Australian compatriot Nick Kyrgios wrote on “X” (formerly Twitter). The top player was alluding to a 2018 fine he received at the tournament at London’s Queen’s Club after making an obscene gesture with a water bottle. At the time, Kyrgios had to pay 15,000 euros.
A smiley in his commentary suggests that Kyrgios considers his offence to be significantly less than Polmans. The latter would have qualified for the main round at a Masters event for the first time with a win. Now opponent Napolitano moves up in his place.
One umpire even had to undergo surgery
Polmans is not the first tennis pro to hit an umpire and be disqualified as a result. The Canadian Denis Shapovalov, for example, had shot the ball from his hand into the eye of the chair umpire during a Davis Cup match in 2017, after which the referee even had to undergo surgery.
Something similar also happened to superstar Novak Djoković. At the US Open 2020, he hit a linesman – but unintentionally. However, the Serb was disqualified anyway. He also lost the prize money he had previously collected.