UMPIRE IN AGONY AS GB WIN BY DEFAULT
GReAT BRITAIn’S Davis Cup tie against Canada ended in sensational fashion last night when Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov was defaulted for hitting a ball in the umpire’s face.
Reigning junior Wimbledon champion Shapovalov (below) was trailing Kyle edmund in a tense deciding rubber when he fired a ball away in disgust that hit Araud Pabas in the eye.
The 17-year-old had just been broken to be behind 6-3, 6-4, 2-1 when he lashed out in anger and drilled the ball in the direction of the chair, very hard and straight. While it was clearly unintentional it hit Frenchman Pabas, meaning a rare automatic default and 3-2 victory for Leon Smith’s team.
After a hiatus of around two minutes, during which time referee Brian earley came on court and spoke to the captains, it was announced that it was game, set and match to Britain.
There was no alternative and Pabas was lucky to escape with what looked like nothing more than a nasty shiner.
A crestfallen Shapovalov was shepherded off the court by his captain Martin Laurendeau with a towel over his head.
Smith said: ‘I feel sorry for Denis, he has learned a harsh lesson. The most important thing is if the umpire is OK, he looked OK but that kind of thing can be very dangerous.’
edmund added: ‘It’s just unfortunate and a shame. At first I didn’t process it, I was focusing on my serve. I wanted to win the match and felt I was playing well, I was in control.’
The incident was slightly comparable to that early in Tim Henman’s career, when he was defaulted from Wimbledon after accidentally hitting a ballgirl. It was the highest profile default since David nalbandian in the final of Queen’s in 2012 when he kicked an advertising hoarding into a line judge’s leg.
The celebrations among the 250 British fans were distinctly muted while the home crowd of around 6,000 melted away.
edmund had admirably stared down the ordeal that can be playing a deciding rubber in the Davis Cup and it already looked like he would carry Britain through to this year’s quarter-finals.
They now face an away trip to France in early April with the hope that Andy Murray will be back. earlier, Dan evans’s recent run of pulling through tight situations had been brought to a halt by Vasek Pospisil, who recovered from the knee problems he had been complaining about to win 7-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6. The Canadian repeatedly pulled out big serves when he needed them and was able to come back from 3-1 down in both the first and fourth sets, having looked spent in the latter. It was more a case of Pospisil playing above himself than the other way round.
And so a month which has seen the Midlander play Roger Federer in Perth, reach the ATP final in Sydney and the fourth round of the Australian Open ended in disappointment.
evans, who missed a break point at 4-4 in the fourth and went on to lose the last tiebreak 7-5, said he would be pulling out of his next tournament in Montpellier to rest after his recent exertions.
‘It’s too much tennis for now. I’ve come through a lot of close matches lately but I couldn’t today. He served well on the big points, my conversion rate must have been diabolical.’