French Open recap: Lorenzo Musetti avoids default after kicking ball into linesperson

New York Times

3 days ago

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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day 10, tennis' bizarre relationship with unsportsmanlike conduct took another twist, the wind whipped up the clay on Court Philippe-Chatrier, and Roland Garros' decision to keep line judges came under scrutiny.
Lorenzo Musetti is headed to the semifinals of the French Open, but he could easily be heading home.
Musetti, the occasionally feisty Italian, cruised through the first set of his quarterfinal against Frances Tiafoe on Tuesday afternoon. In the second, things started to go south. His slice backhand wasn't biting. His forehand was flying. Tiafoe had gotten used to his spins and was outplaying him.
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As the second set wound down, Musetti vented by kicking a ball toward the back wall of Court Philippe-Chatrier. It accidentally whacked a line judge near her shoulder. The ball wasn't moving particularly fast, but sending a ball in flight in anger and hitting anyone with it, much less a line judge, comes with a ball abuse penalty that can include being ejected from the tournament.
Tennis is weird about defaults — the ultimate penalty for bad behavior, which involves automatically losing the match. Whether or not a player smacks a ball in frustration, or throws or kicks it like Musetti, the penalty more often than not is outcome-based. If the person struck is in distress, the player gets defaulted, they are allowed to continue. But per the rulebook, that should be irrelevant.
'Players shall not violently, dangerously or with anger hit, kick or throw a tennis ball while on the grounds of the tournament site except in the reasonable pursuit of a point during a match (including warm-up).
'For purposes of this rule, abuse of balls is defined as intentionally or recklessly hitting a ball out of the enclosure of the court, hitting a ball dangerously or recklessly within the court or hitting a ball with disregard of the consequences.'
The problem with the logic currently applied is that it gives players credit for being in control of something which they are not in control of. Smashing or kicking a ball into a crowd of people or an enclosed space is risky. Whether or not it hits someone with a glancing blow or square on is pure luck.
On this occasion, chair umpire Timo Janzen let Musetti off with a warning. Tiafoe complained, but to no avail.
Novak Djokovic was defaulted from the 2020 U.S. Open when he whacked a ball that inadvertently hit a line judge in the throat. Two years ago at Roland Garros, doubles player Miyu Kato and her partner were defaulted after Kato accidentally hit a ball kid in the neck when returning a ball to her — not even swatting it in frustration.
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Kato originally received a warning, but her opponents complained and the supervisor ultimately disqualified Kato and her partner, Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia. The year before, Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu accidentally bounced her racket into the crowd. It hit a small child, who started crying but his parents said he was fine. She received a warning.
If all this sounds a bit inconsistent, it is. Tiafoe was still annoyed with Janzen's handling of the situation an hour after the end of the match. He called the decision 'comical.'
'He did that and nothing happened,' Tiafoe said. 'Obviously it's inconsistent.'
Musetti said later he was scared that he was going to get booted from the tournament. 'I did not want to harm anybody,' he said. 'There was no intention about it.'
Matt Futterman
Sports stadiums can be weird places when it comes to wind. The air can be nearly still four stories up, but swirling about at court level.
That was Court Philippe-Chatrier on Tuesday, the second quarterfinal day for the men and the women. There were several moments during Iga Świątek's match against Elina Svitolina when the players had to stop and turn their heads away from the wind to avoid getting a mouthful of red dust.
Players talk about feeling like small bugs in the cavernous stadium, which seats just 15,000. The stands slope gently outward, leaving a low broad opening at the top, while the retractable roof slides over from just one side, leaving a big opening at the top for gusts to get in.
This was not as bad as 2019, when gusts measured at nearly 50 mph (and Rafael Nadal) sent Roger Federer packing in their semifinal. But it was not great. In tennis, wind direction can be just as important as its speed. Wind will make serving difficult regardless, but it has its clearest impact when it is blowing parallel to the sidelines, rather than perpendicular.
At one end, players have to be wary of overhitting with the breeze at their back. On the other, they have to be mindful of how much it will hold up their shots. The player receiving a ball with wind behind it needs to react quicker; if it's slowing a ball down, their footwork needs to take them to it and adjust to any sudden changes of direction.
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If air is buffeting around a stadium every which way, things get a little more chaotic.
Świątek said the worst wind she has experienced was at Wimbledon, where she has problems on the grass even when it's still, but this was rough.
'In the second set, it got pretty crazy,' Świątek said. 'I never had that here, but in the first set it wasn't that bad. I think it kind of slowed down also at the end of the match.'
Of course she thought that: she served three aces in the final game of her 6-1, 7-5 win.
Matt Futterman
From the start of play, it's felt inevitable that the French Open's decision to opt for line judges over electronic line calling (ELC) would come under scrutiny.
Mixed events on clay, and every other surface, use ELC, but the tournament opted against it. The France Tennis Federation (FFT) president, Gilles Moretton, said in April that this was because it trusts their industry-leading officials to do a good job, claiming last week that ELC had been shown not to be totally effective at the earlier clay events this year.
The downside of no ELC was duly exposed Tuesday when at a critical moment in the quarterfinal between Aryna Sabalenka and Zheng Qinwen, a bad error from the officials could have made a major difference. With Zheng serving at 5-6, 30-30, Sabalenka hit a backhand that looked to have drifted long — so much so that Zheng stopped the point, despite there being no out call.
The umpire got off her chair to inspect the mark, and backed up the line judge's call, but television replays using Hawk-Eye technology showed that the ball had actually been 7mm out. ELC has a margin of error, but it is smaller than 7mm. Given the speed at which Sabalenka's ball was traveling, it should have been relatively easy for the line judge to track, but bad errors like this are always possible with humans calling the lines. Zheng was able to hold her serve, so the incorrect call didn't have a material impact on the match, but it's an embarrassing look for the sport that such a critical call at a Grand Slam could have been botched like that.
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There were a couple of further wrong calls that were at least correctly overruled by the umpire. The FFT did not respond to a request for comment on the officiating errors from the match.
Later on Chatrier, Tiafoe was involved in a number of heated discussions with the umpire Janzen during his defeat to Musetti. On one occasion in the fifth set, Janzen got off his chair and incorrectly overruled an out call.
The players are generally in favour of ELC, partly because while they know it's not completely infallible, there's certainty and no argument. Speaking of arguments, it's getting harder and harder to make one for relying on humans to make these decisions.
Charlie Eccleshare
Pretty much everyone who even vaguely follows tennis knows about or remembers the Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer Wimbledon final in 2008. Very few remember either of their paths to that final, however. Both were incredibly straightforward, with just one set dropped between them along the way. As the rounds went on, it felt as though each was trying to outdo the other and send out a little statement.
Something similar is happening here, where the top two seeds Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are taking it in turns to showcase their title credentials in their bids to set up a meeting in Sunday's final.
After Sinner eviscerated Jiří Lehečka Saturday for the loss of just three games, Alcaraz beat a much tougher opponent in Ben Shelton the following day, even if it took him four sets. Sinner then thrashed a similarly ranked opponent to Shelton in Andrey Rublev on Sunday night, losing eight games.
Not to be outdone, Alcaraz only gave up five in a 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 battering of American world No. 12 Tommy Paul on Tuesday night. Sinner took two hours to beat Rublev; Alcaraz only took 94 minutes to get past Paul, who was physically hampered but would not have quelled the version of Alcaraz he played even at full fitness.
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The way it's been going, perhaps Sinner was watching Alcaraz's masterclass against Paul and thinking about how he could improve on it in his own quarterfinal Wednesday.
So good luck, Alexander Bublik.
Charlie Eccleshare
Tell us what you noticed on the tenth day…
(Top photo of Lorenzo Musetti: Alain Jocard / AFP via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)