Beaten Konta in row with ‘joke’ umpire
Player storms off court after controversial calls Evans falls to De Minaur in final at Nottingham
Johanna Konta finished runner-up at Nottingham’s Nature Valley Open for the second year but not before a controversial conclusion in which she lost her temper at a couple of dubious line calls and berated the chair umpire.
Konta was fired up before the final game of her 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 defeat at the hands of Ashleigh Barty, the top seed from Australia. Barty had just closed out a service hold for 5-4 after one of her groundstrokes looked to have flown an inch or two long and Konta – who had been frustrated by another close call a few minutes earlier – stormed up to the chair to have her say.
“This is an absolute joke,” said Konta, waving her finger at Paula Vieira Souza, the Brazilian umpire who had declined to overrule the line judge.
“We are out here busting our chops. You are making decisions that affect all our lives. Do you fully understand that?”
Like the canny player she is, Barty stepped in to take advantage, breaking to 15 in the next game to lift the title. Konta shook hands with her opponent, but bypassed Vieira Souza completely and stormed straight off court, leaving Barty to fill the pause before the presentation ceremony by hitting a few balls into the crowd.
The situation had echoes of Bjorn Borg’s infamous dash for the airport after his loss to John Mcenroe in the 1981 US Open final. Martina Hingis also spent a couple of tearful minutes off the court after being beaten by Steffi Graf in the 1999 French Open final, but her mother hustled her back on.
Konta was away for a good fiveand-a-half minutes yesterday, forcing the master of ceremonies to announce that the presentation would take place once she had returned to the court.
Having composed herself, Konta finally emerged in a calmer state of mind. “This is a very good result for me,” she told the on-court interviewer, Annabel Croft. “I have a lot of positives to take from it. It is a good feeling to be back in the last day of a tournament.”
Earlier, Dan Evans had lost the men’s final in Nottingham, to another Australian, 19-year-old Alex de Minaur. This was a straight-sets defeat, if a close one, as De Minaur, who broke into the top 100 for the first time last weekend, edged home by a 7-6, 7-5 margin.
Evans will be in action again tomorrow in the Fever-tree Championships at Queen’s Club, thanks to the wild card granted last week by the Lawn Tennis Association. But if he wins his first match against Adrian Mannarino, he could face a clash with the Wimbledon prequalifying event.
Asked yesterday how he might approach this problem, Evans said he would not withdraw from Queen’s, and could even consider playing two matches in one day.
“My year doesn’t revolve around just trying to play Wimbledon,” said Evans. “But it wouldn’t be my preference to miss the best slam there is.”
Evans also explained that he does not expect to receive a wild card from the All England Club. As he put it, with characteristic directness: “I’ve had easily the worst past of any British player.”
Finally, Roger Federer beat Milos Raonic 6-4, 7-6 in Stuttgart to claim his 98th title. Should he also win the Halle Open on Sunday, he would be on course to bring up his century at Wimbledon.