“This is the rule!” Raging Tiafoe in obscene outburst at umpire

Gilles Simon once wrote about tennis: ‘This sport drives you crazy’. This Tuesday, Frances Tiafoe illustrated this once again with his epic defeat by Russian Roman Safiullin in Shanghai – 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (5).

It was a duel that featured no fewer than 88 winners (36 for Tiafoe, 52 for Safiullin) in a match that lasted three hours and six minutes.

The tension was running high as it approached its climax, and Tiafoe cracked under pressure.

In the deciding tiebreak, with the score at 5-5, the American took longer than the permitted 25 seconds before serving. Having already been warned for the same reason earlier in the match, the semi-finalist of the last US Open was punished with a ‘loss of serve’; in other words, he was forced to serve a second serve without even having hit a first serve.

This decision by Ecuadorian referee Jimmy Pinoargote was enough to push Tiafoe over the edge. The 26-year-old told the umpire that he had tossed the ball in preparation to serve, even though he had not hit it. For his part, the chair umpire did not flinch, repeating that he had to play a second serve.

Two points later, the American was beaten and eliminated from the Shanghai Masters 1000, but he didn’t stop there. In a rage, he failed to shake the umpire’s hand and shouted several loud obscenities at him. His behaviour is likely to lead to disciplinary action.