Andy Murray got his second win of the 2024 season under his belt as he beat Denis Shapovalov at the Dubai Tennis Championship, but the match had one peculiar game that involved the “famous Coco Gauff” chair umpire.
2017 Dubai champion Murray lost the opening set against the Canadian, but eventually moved up a couple of gears to come away with a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 victory in two hours and 32 minutes as he claimed his 500th hard-court win in tennis.
The controversial moment in the match came in the opening game of the second set on the Murray serve as he challenged three calls and asked for Hawkeye to review the calls.
Chair umpire Pierre Bacchi obliged and the former world No 1 was proven right on all three
First his serve was called long and after there was no overrule from the chair umpire, he challenged and the replay showed it was in. Same story on the second call while on the third call a return from Shapovalov went long and it was called in and this time the replay showed it was out.
Murray was clearly irritated by the whole affair while the commentators rightly described it as “extraordinary”.
Murray wins 3 correct challenges in 3 points 🙋♂️#DDFTennis pic.twitter.com/ghA8sKP8Sj
But to add more fuel to the fire, it was the same chair umpire who was involved in a heated argument with Gauff during her win over Karolina Pliskova also in the UAE last week.
With Gauff serving at 4-2 in the second set, her serve was called out by Bacchi and the American challenged the call. After she was proven correct she thought she would be awarded the point as her opponent had already hit the ball into the net when the original call came, but was told the point should be replayed.
The world No 3 and Bacchi argued for several minutes with the American saying: “You’re going to apologise after this match because you know you messed up. I’ve never questioned anything like this before.”
Gauff admitted afterwards to Reuters that the incident “fuelled her”.
“I think it just fueled me. It’s just one point. It happens in tennis. Players make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. I was trying to tell myself to stay calm the next point. Sometimes I get angry and I go for too much. I was trying to let that not be the turning point for the set.
“Maybe I dragged it out a little longer than I needed to, but I did what I felt was best in that moment.”
Former world No 1 Andy Roddick agreed with Gauff in a social media post as he wrote: “This is an absurd exchange for this umpire. 1. He’s completely wrong 2. He’s lying about being wrong. 3. She must have simply said 10 plus times, I’d like the supervisor. That’s not a judgement call. He simply needed to honor that normal request and call the supervisor.”