Murray, Brooksby, Korda Advance In Miami, Berrettini Withdraws; Zverev, Rublev v Kyrgios

Flipping hell, man – is this all that Tennis-X have to say on this incident?!?

“Jenson Brooksby chucked a racquet and then got his game into gear coming from a set down to defeat Federico Coria”

Really!?! Is that it?

Brooksby smashed the racquet – for the second time during the match – in a great rage. The racquet bounced off and smacked the ball boy on the leg. The poor guy jumped up, trying to avoid it, covered his chest and face trying to shield himself, and NOTHING. Brooksby didn’t even apologise, just walked off pretending that nothing was happening. The umpire awarded a point penalty and moved on. ATP completely uninterested – aparently there are different rules for different players.

Remember the US Open 2019 incident, when Djokovic passed a ball towards the back of the court without looking, the ball hit the lineswoman in the throat, Djokovic leapt towards her to see how she was, apologised, and was promptly disqualified and fined well over half a million dollars.

When did the word “hypocrisy” and “corruption” drop from tennis-X vocabulary?

March 25th, 2022 at 8:59 am

Yeah, a better telling of the incident would be, “Brooksby missed an automatic DQ by just a few inches today…”

Not being a rules expert I defer to the ump but this was not a good look. I hope someone (i.e., parent, coach) straightened him out after the match. Not a good look at all. His apparent lack of remorse…disturbing.

A much better angle here than that awful gif that’s circulating…TX’ers, you be the judge:

https://twitter.com/RobKoenigTennis/status/1507157547463106576

March 25th, 2022 at 7:39 pm

Indeed, that’s a much clearer picture, video massively slowed down, so it’s possible to see what happened, but not the viciousness of the original action.

Thanks for the link, but it doesn’t change anything. The racquet did hit the ball boy on the foot, but only after bouncing off the back wall. If the ball boy hadn’t been watching and hadn’t reacted by leaping in the air, it would have been a direct hit, instead of a bounce.

It doesn’t matter whether the racquet hit directly, or only on rebound, the key point is it did hit the ball boy. After the Djokovic episode at US 2019, we all know the rules – the umpire should have called the tournament supervisor, who would have then said that his hands are tied, that it’s an automatic disqualification, because that is what the rules say. No appeal.

The viciousness of the hit was much worse than in Djokovic’s case, who was merely passing the ball back towards the back of the court and happened to mis-hit it.

In one way, both incidents were accidental in that neither player intended to hit the ball boy/ lineswoman. But, in Djokovic’s case, the originating action (when he hit the tennis ballwith the racquet) was accidental, it was a mis-hit which sent the ball in the wrong direction, but which was intended to pass the ball to the back of the court. That cannot be said of Brooksby’s action, there was nothing accidental about him smashing the racquet which despite the ballboy-s fast reaction, hit him on the foot.

ATP, Miami tournament and the umpire are clearly at fault here. Rules need to be applied equally and fairly in all cases, otherwise the furious reactions by players will not be brought under control.

March 26th, 2022 at 3:21 pm

Yep, numerous former pros (& I’m guessing a few current) agree that he should have been DQed.

The ATP needs to make a clear statement about this rule & its enforcement before someone really gets hurt.

March 27th, 2022 at 7:43 am