“It was a high-pressure situation and I should have reacted better.” This is how Marc Polmans apologizes, after his controversial disqualification yesterday from the qualifying phase of the Shanghai Masters 1000, when he threw a ball in the face of the chair umpire, Ben Anderson, after missing a match point. "He has accepted my apology because he knows that it was not intentional. It was due to the frustration of the moment," the Australian tennis player said on his social networks about the action in question.
Polmans was facing Italian Stefano Napolitano and the 26-year-old's controversial gesture came in the second set tiebreaker. This event reminded many tennis fans of what happened at the 2020 US Open with Novak Djokovic. The current world number one hit one of the lines judges with a ball, leading to an unsportsmanlike action and the consequent disqualification of the Serbian from the US Open. In that match, Pablo Carreño was on the other side of the net and directly reached the quarterfinals of the last Grand Slam of the year, thanks to this disagreement.
The number 140 in the ATP ranking could not qualify yesterday to play the final draw of a Masters 1000 for the first time in his career and is expected to soon receive a fine from the highest body of men's tennis.
The first round matches of the Shanghai Masters 1000 began to be played today, but it should be noted that the tournament returns to the calendar, after being out of the spotlight for three years due to the pandemic. Novak Djokovic will not play this competition in China; Carlos Alcaraz will do so, making his debut in the second round against the winner of the match between the Portuguese, Nuno Borges, and the Frenchman, Gregoire Barrere.
