By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday October 9, 2024
Tuesday in Shanghai was a day of meltdowns. First we brought you Frances Tiafoe’s obscenity-laced tirade after a time violation call impacted his match. Now we bring you Alexander Zverev, who launched a heated monologue at umpire Mohamed Layhani in Shanghai after it was ruled – correctly – that he had hit a ball after a double bounce during his match with Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands.
Zverev notched the victory in three tough sets, 7-6(6) 2-6 7-6(5), but not before he took 90 seconds to get his frustrations out.
What did we learn?
At the end of a long season the World No.3 is clearly not over the call that went against him at Roland-Garros during his final with Carlos Alcaraz. Remember the Spaniard double-faulted to give Zverev a break back at 2-all in the fifth set of that thrilling encounter, but it was ruled an ace after the fact after the chair umpire checked the mark. Alcaraz kept the 3-1 lead and went on to win the title.
“Every Grand Slam final I play I lose it because of you guys,” a frustrated Zverev said during his rant. He also said that he's tired after 80 matches, and added that he was running his ass off at nine PM, while all Layhani was doing was sitting comfortably in his chair.
Hard to blame Zverev for still being upset about the call in Paris, but he was wrong about Layhani’s call in Shanghai. The German was nowhere close to getting the ball before it bounced a second time.
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After nearly 80 matches on tour this season, Zverev is clearly running on fumes. And, as we saw on Tuesday with Tiafoe’s outburst, he’s not the only one.