By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday, June 29, 2022
After a brilliant first-round win at Wimbledon that saw him take out the No.7 seed Hubert Hurkacz in five sets, Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina picked the worst possible - and most heartbreaking - way to lose in the second round.
While trailing 9-7 in the fifth set tiebreak against Jiri Vesely on Court 17, the Spaniard smacked a ball in anger out of the court before he started to prepare to face double match points. Problem was, he had already incurred a penalty, which meant that his ball abuse infraction had ended the match.
Davidovich Fokina stood stunned as Carlos Ramos called game, set and match Vesely.
Davidovich Fokina led two sets to one, and he also had a 7-6 lead in the match tiebreak. Then things went south. After falling behind by 9-7, he smacked a ball out of the court, and was hit with the code violation.
To his credit he handled the devastating news well, shaking hands with Vesely and Ramos before having a discussion about what happened, for clarity.
Next time, he’ll do better. Vesely moves on to face Tommy Paul in round three.