Donaldson fined £4,300 for umpire rant as Edmund falls at first hurdle
● American in hot water at Monte Carlo Masters ● British No 1 suffers opening round loss to Seppi
Jared Donaldson has been fined €5,000 (£4,328) for unsportsmanlike conduct after angrily ranting at the umpire during his first-round loss to Albert Ramos-vinolas at the Monte Carlo Masters.
The American became irate with a call when Ramos-vinolas was serving at 3-2, 40-0 in the second set on Monday. Donaldson thought the serve was out and pointed to the ground, shouting, “There’s a mark right here,” and then screaming the same words in the face of French umpire Arnaud Gabas.
He then squared up to Gabas and shouted: “Yes it is, yeah it is,” as he insisted his mark was right and the umpire’s call of “in” was wrong.
Donaldson, who yelled again at Gabas before the supervisor came on, received a code violation. He lost 6-3, 6-3. Kyle Edmund, meanwhile, suffered his second defeat in three days after losing to Italy’s Andreas Seppi in the opening round.
The British No 1 reached a career-high ranking of 23 after making his first ATP Tour final in Marrakesh at the weekend, but a positive week ended on a sour note when he was well beaten by lowly-ranked Pablo Andujar. He seemed to carry that disappointment, and no doubt a little weariness, into the first set against Seppi and trailed 5-1 after a lacklustre first six games. Edmund, pictured, rallied at the end of the set and finally made his sixth break point of the second count to force a decider but Seppi, who was one of the Yorkshireman’s victims during his run to the Australian Open semifinals, finished the stronger to win 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.
In second-round matches, Grigor Dimitrov and Dominic Thiem both had to come from a set down to progress.
Fourth seed Dimitrov rallied to beat Pierre-hugues Herbert 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, while the fifthseeded Thiem saved a match point in his 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 win against Andrey Rublev.
Dimitrov looked out of sorts in the first set, dropping his serve twice against Herbert. Serving at 5-3 and 15-40 down, he mistimed a forehand and the ball went off the racket frame and into the crowd.
But the Bulgarian found his range in the second set, securing consecutive breaks on the Frenchman’s serve before serving it out at love.
Dimitrov broke Herbert in the fifth game of the decider, then immediately dropped serve with another wild forehand before breaking his opponent again for 4-3. He sealed the victory on his first match point when he whipped a powerful forehand to the back of the court, which Herbert returned long.
Earlier, Thiem saved a match point when Rublev served at 5-4, 40-30 but hit a forehand narrowly wide.
Thiem made the most of the reprieve, breaking the Russian with a backhand pass down the line and holding for 6-5.
The Austrian was 15-40 up on Rublev’s serve and also converted his first match point, when Rublev double-faulted with a weak serve into the net.
Thiem next meets 12-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic or Borna Coric of Croatia, who play their second-round match today.
Elsewhere, Sabina Sharipova will play Yafan Wang for a place in the quarter-finals of the Zhengzhou Open in China after beating Peangtarn Plipuech in three sets.
Plipuech won the first set 6-4 before Sharipova, currently ranked 217 in the world, took the next two sets 6-2, 7-6 (7/2).
Yingying Duan will play Jiajing Lu in the second round after beating India’s Ankita Raina in three sets while Eri Hozumi won 6-3, 6-3 against Zhaoxuan Yang and Miharu Imanishi beat Vitalia Diatchenko.
Xiaodi You needed three sets to beat Yue Yuan while Fangzhou Liu wasted little time beating Fang Ying Xun 6-0, 6-0.