Open umpire’s actions questioned
NEW YORK – Nick Kyrgios was losing big at the U.S. Open on Thursday and barely even trying. Didn’t move while so-so serves flew by for aces. Casually put groundstrokes into the net. Double-faulted without caring.
The crowd began booing. The chair umpire, Mohamed Lahyani, decided to intervene. In an unusual sight for Grand Slam tennis, Lahyani clambered down out of his seat during a break between games, leaned over with hands on knees, and spoke with the 30th-seeded Kyrgios, saying, among other things, “I want to help you.”
It all seemed like an impromptu intervention for the mercurial Kyrgios, right out there on Court 17 at Flushing Meadows, and it raised questions about whether Lahyani overstepped his duties as someone who’s primarily there to keep score and keep order.
Kyrgios went from trailing by a set and a break at the time to wresting control of the match by coming back to beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-0.
“This was not his job,” Herbert said about Lahyani. “I don’t think he’s a coach, he’s an umpire, and he should stay on his chair for that.”
The U.S. Open’s referee and chief umpire were reviewing what happened, as was the Grand Slam Board. Chair umpires are never made available to the media, but tournament referee Brian Earley said Lahyani explained that he left his perch “to make sure he could communicate effectively” with Kyrgios in a noisy arena.
According to Earley, the official said he wanted to check whether Kyrgios needed medical attention and to warn the player that Lahyani “would need to take action” if the “seeming lack of interest in the match continued.”
During an occasionally confrontational and sarcastic exchange with reporters, Kyrgios laughed at the suggestion that he had received coaching or a pep talk from Lahyani.
“I mean, like, I don’t have a coach. I haven’t had a coach for, like, years. Of course he wasn’t coaching me,” Kyrgios said.
Federer defeated Benoit Paire, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4, and then criticized Lahyani for going to talk to Kyrgios for as long as he did, and from as close as he did.