By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday October 8, 2024
Frances Tiafoe lost his first serve at 5-5 in the final set tiebreak against Roman Safiullin.
Then he lost the match.
Finally, he lost his cool, as Safiullin logged the 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(5) victory.
Tiafoe was frustrated with a decision made by chair umpire Jimmy Pinoargote, but it appears that Pinoargote was well within his rights to dock Tiafoe for a time violation.
The replay shows Tiafoe late to the service line as he prepared to serve at 5-all in the tiebreak, when he tosses the ball up in the air. But it was clear that Tiafoe wasn’t going to hit the toss, which is why he was docked for the violation.
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“I tossed the ball and I was ready to serve,” Tiafoe argued. “That’s the rule.”
Tiafoe did toss the ball, but was clearly not ready to serve. We cannot see the clock in the video below, so we’ll have to assume that the 25-second clock wound down to zero (Tiafoe wasn’t arguing that there was time on the clock).
After losing the next two points Tiafoe shook hands with Safiullin and hurled a myriad of obscenities at Pinoargote. He’ll certainly be fined for his actions.
Update: Credit to Tiafoe for his Instagram apology, which can be seen below the jump: