Tennis pro Frances Tiafoe has been eliminated from the Shanghai Masters. After his defeat, he attacked the referee massively – and insulted him badly.
US-Open semi-finalist Frances Tiafoe has already been eliminated in the round of 16 at the Shanghai Masters. The 26-year-old narrowly lost to the Russian Roman Rischatowitsch Safiullin with 7:5, 5:7 and 6:7 (5:7). Tiafoe didn’t know how to deal with his defeat at all, attacking referee Jimmy Pinoargote verbally immediately after the game – and how.
“Fuck you, man. Fuck you. Seriously, man. You fucked me the whole match. You fucking piece of shit,” he insulted the Ecuadorian in the worst possible way. ‘All these people want to be entertained, but you’re fucking up the match,’ he continued, shouting angrily at Pinoargote.
But what had happened anyway?
It was about a scene a few seconds before the end of the match. With the score at 5-5 in the tiebreak of the third set, Tiafoe received a penalty for taking too long to serve. Since Tiafoe had already received a warning for delaying the game in this match, he was now penalized for the first serve and had to serve with his second serve. The American lost this rally, allowing Safiulin to serve for the match at 6-5. The Russian took advantage of this and won the match, which was the cause of Tiafoe’s outburst.
Tiafoe had previously argued that he had tipped the ball up and was about to serve. However, the shot clock had already expired, so Pinoargote’s decision was understandable.
The incident between Tiafoe and Pinoargote was not the only controversial decision in these hours of Shanghai. Earlier, the Swiss Stan Wawrinka had been the victim of a counting error by the umpire Carlos Bernardes (read more about this here).