Watch Tomas Berdych Try To Get Away With An Underhand Serve Yesterday [Video]

by Tom Gainey | August 9th, 2013, 9:45 am
  • 7 Comments

Controversy wasn’t confined to just the Milos Raonic-Juan Martin Del Potro match yesterday at the Montreal Rogers Cup. In a third round match against Canadian youngster Vasek Pospisil, Tomas Berdych tried a sneaky underhand serve.

The incident took place in the third set with Berdych serving 30-0, 2-4. In response to the chair umpire’s time violation warning, a sarcastic Berdych made a quick legal underarm, underhand serve but it was disallowed by the umpire due to the pause in play.

“I announced, then you cannot serve like that,” the finger-wagging umpire told Berdcyh.


Berdych went on to lose the match in a third set tiebreaker.


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7 Comments for Watch Tomas Berdych Try To Get Away With An Underhand Serve Yesterday [Video]

Thomas Says:

This is hilarious. I believe Gulbis did the same thing against Fognini!

August 9th, 2013 at 9:56 am


Ben Pronin Says:

I don’t understand, it was disallowed? Pause in play? Can someone elaborate on this?

August 9th, 2013 at 10:58 am


Thomas Says:

^^I agree. I thought underhanded serves were legal. Gulbis definitely did it against Fognini and it was allowed.(He did it after receiving a time violation.)

August 9th, 2013 at 11:02 am


Bob Says:

It was a completely BS call from the umpire. It was totally legal and should have counted as an ace.

It doesn’t matter if you think it was cheap, cheeky or unsportsmanlike. It was legal as written in the rule book.

August 9th, 2013 at 1:14 pm


YourDirtyMind1 Says:

I think everyone commenting above misunderstands what is happening here in the video. The umpire didn’t call Berdych for serving underhand (which is perfectly legal, as everyone has stated). The umpire disallowed the serve because it was hit after he had already announced a time violation. Berdych quick-served in order to try to get the thing in the box before the umpire finished calling the time violation. And the umpire correctly did not allow him to do so, because he had already started to announce the time violation. The fact that it was underhand has nothing to do with it, and it was in no way a BS call at all. The serve was not legal and should not have counted as an ace because the point was already lost on the time violation. The umpire was exactly correct, handled the situation correctly, and there is no issue. That’s also why Berdych doesn’t argue with it. In fact, it looks like he was joking/sarcatic when he hit it in the first place…as in, he knew he’d already lost the point.

So all the outrage at the umpire is misplaced. He was just doing his job and doing it correctly.

August 9th, 2013 at 8:49 pm


Patrick Says:

But time violations don’t result in a lost point. They still let you serve it.

August 13th, 2013 at 7:50 am


Andy Says:

He was allowed to reserve it. It was 30-0 when he did the underarm serve, and it was still 30-0 when he served the overarm serve.

September 29th, 2013 at 5:08 pm

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