“This has never happened to me in my career,” hallucinated Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas explained to Spanish referee Nacho Forcadell during his second-round Cincinnati Masters 1000 ATP match against American Ben Shelton.
The Hellene, 25 years old and world number 4, could not believe that he had been the victim of a strange trolling suffered on a tennis court, with thousands of witnesses. Among them, his team, now led by Australian Mark Philippousis, replaced the tennis player’s father, Apostolos Tsitipas. Also Paula Badosa, absent due to injury in the WTA 1000 played at the same time, and with her partner in training and matches.
This strangeness also surprised Forcadell, who had difficulty understanding the problem Tsitsipas was exposing.
Suddenly, the tennis player starts swinging the racket as if it were a weapon of defense against an insect. The Athenian believed he was talking to a bee, which prevented him from going out.
Until he detects that there is no animal, that it is a person from the stand imitating the hum of a bee. “Someone is imitating a bee behind me. The noise behind me when I serve,” said Tsitsipas angrily to the stunned chair umpire.
Stefanos goes behind the stand to find out who caused the episode. With a tip, he detected the woman imitating the bee. This is how he told Nacho Forcadell, demanding his expulsion from the track.
“I understand that they support (Shelton, American),” Tsitsipas told the referee. Shelton entered the dialogue: “What’s going on? Are they telling you something?” “No, they imitate a bee, there is a buzz,” the Greek clarified.
He returned to his position under the promise of the referee that they would talk to the lady in question. There was no need as he immediately apologized to the Greek as he returned to his position, close to him, to serve.
It’s like losing your nerve in a fiercely contested match, without a service break, which is decided in separate ‘tiebreaks’. All this happened with Tsitsipas leading the scoreboard (7-6, 3-4). He claimed a 7-6, 7-6 victory over the left-handed Shelton, 20 years old and world number 40.
Source: La Verdad
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