Frances Tiafoe‘s time violation at the 2024 Shanghai Masters led to a much-publicized meltdown at the umpire. Andy Roddick recently expressed his thoughts about the violation and the rule that led to it.
The Shanghai Masters ended with Jannik Sinner denying Novak Djokovic the 100th title of his career after defeating the Serbian in the final. But the tournament generated attention for having several controversies throughout.
The worst umpiring mistake was undoubtedly during Stan Wawrinka’s match against Flavio Cobolli. After both men won a point each to start the second game of the deciding set, the score should have been 15-15.
Incredibly, Carlos Bernardes, who is retiring from umpiring at the end of the season, called the score as 0-30. Neither player noticed the mistake, and Wawrinka ended up being broken for the only time in the match.
By contrast, Alexander Zverev was incorrect in his dispute with Mohamed Lahyani. The German accused the umpires of “fu***ing up the whole tournament” after Lahyani called a double bounce, but replays showed the Swedish official got it right.
Another factor that caused controversy was the automatic shot clock used during the Shanghai Masters. Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas were among the players unhappy after receiving time violations.
However, the most controversial time violation given during the tournament was to Tiafoe. The American lost a first serve at 5-5 in a deciding-set tie-break and went on to lose the following two points and the match against Roman Safiullin.
Tiafoe claimed he tossed the ball up in time, meaning he should not have been given the violation, but the umpire stated it did not look like a legitimate attempt to serve. That led to the 26-year-old’s furious meltdown at the umpire after the match.
Speaking on his podcast, Roddick accepted that Tiafoe was not making a genuine attempt to serve but said lots of players do the same thing, and his compatriot was only called because he made the fake toss too obvious.
“The shot clock, the easiest way to reset it is to fake a toss. Basically, the ruling on Frances was, you didn’t pretend enough for me to make me think that it was a realistic attempt, where if we’re going letter of the law, it should have reset when Frances tossed the ball no matter what it looked like.”
“If you’re going to let everyone get away with it all year long but because they are faking and going through this weird end of this dumb rule where the toss isn’t part of the serve, which I’ll never believe… Frances didn’t do anything different to anyone all year; he basically just made a mockery of it.”
Roddick’s comments are interesting. Some might dispute that by the letter of the law, Tiafoe should not have been given the time violation since the rule is that players must be making a clear attempt to serve when they throw the ball up.
The former US Open champion’s point about other players doing the same thing and not getting called is less debatable. Umpires not being consistent in applying the rules is a frustration many have.
