By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Photo credit: Tennis TV Screen Shot
Tomas Martin Etcheverry paid an arm and a leg for an incorrect call in Basel today.
Serving at 2-3, 15-30 in the openint set, Etcheverry was behind the baseline when opponent Ben Shelton's shot landed long then hit the the lanky Argentinean in the leg.
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The chair umpire incorrectly ruled the ball struck Etcheverry's leg before it went long and award the point to Shelton.
Journalist Jose Morgado captured the exchange here.
The call forced Etcheverry to face double break point instead of 30-all.
Shelton broke serve on the next point and went on to win 6-3, 6-4, advancing to the Swiss Indoors Basel round of 16 against either Swiss wild card Stan Wawrinka or French left-hander Adrian Mannarino.
Afterward, Shelton said he felt sorry for Etcheverry and said it's another reason why tennis needs Video Assistant Review to verify disputed calls, including net touches, not ups and today's call where the ball landed out then struck Etcheverry.
"That’s a tough moment and a bad call—if it hit the ground—I’m going to watch it after the match," Shelton said in his on-court interview. "I’ll go watch it for myself and see what happened. I went to my team who was kind of on that line, I said: did you see what happened? They said it looked like it hit his foot in the air.
"If they said it looked like it hit the ground, I would have given him the point immediately. But not my place and I couldn’t see the ball at all—obviously I was 20 feet behind my own baseline. But a tough moment.
"I think another reason we need that VAR, the replay that has to become a part of tennis because it is a game of millimeters. And things like that can change the course of a match. So I’m sorry. I feel bad for Tomas on that one—it’s something that just shouldn’t happen."
To Etcheverry's credit, he showed no animosity after the loss shaking the chair umpire's hand without complaint.