Alexander Zverev was furious about a call made by umpire Mohamed Lahyani during his 2024 Shanghai Masters match, but replays show that the Swedish official made the right decision.
Zverev has also recently expressed unhappiness off the court, saying the schedule is too long with too many tournaments. Other players, including Carlos Alcaraz, share that opinion.
The German bluntly claimed that the ATP does not care about the well-being and best interests of the players and that the organization is only concerned with making as much money as possible from their efforts.
His feelings about the schedule may have hardened after he withdrew from the China Open due to lung inflammation. That health battle could have made wanting increased time a top priority.
The 27-year-old returned at the Shanghai Masters. After easily winning his opening match, he faced Tallon Griekspoor in the following round, who Zverev defeated at the French Open in an epic five-set battle.
Their match in Shanghai was also outstanding. Griekspoor dominated significant periods of the contest and put Zverev under pressure, but the two-time Grand Slam finalist narrowly prevailed 7-6, 2-6, 7-6.
However, the closeness and quality of the match did not attract the attention of many fans. Zverev’s furious reaction to Lahyani’s double-bounce call generated much of the post-match discussion.
With the score at 5-5 40-40 on Griekspoor’s serve in the first set, Zverev attempted to track down a short ball at the net. The German felt he got to it, but Lahyani called a double bounce from the chair.
As seen in the first video below, Zverev was furious with Lahyani. He insisted he got to the ball cleanly and then accused the umpires of “f***ing up the whole tournament’, referencing an incident that led to Frances Tiafoe raging at an umpire after his match.
The No. 2 seed then threw his racket. Lahyani felt he had no choice but to give Zverev an unsportsmanlike conduct violation for the combination of his language and throwing the racket away.
Zverev continued his rant at the umpire after Griekspoor won the next point to hold serve, as seen in the second video below. He accused umpires of being the reason for his two defeats in Grand Slam finals.
The two-time ATP Finals winner was probably thinking of a line call the umpire did get wrong in this year’s French Open final against Carlos Alcaraz, although it is not certain that impacted the final result.
However, as can also be seen in the second video, the umpire was not wrong on this occasion. The ball clearly bounced a second time before Zverev got his racket to it, and Griekspoor was correctly awarded the point.
Umpires do sometimes make bad mistakes, such as the shocking error made during Stan Wawrinka’s match. But it is also important to acknowledge when they are receiving undeserved abuse, as Lahyani was in this case.
Hopefully, Zverev looked at the incident after the match, realized he got it wrong, and apologized to Lahyani for giving him some unwarranted flak.
