Andy Murray calls out the ‘unfair’ booing against him by the Italian fans over disputed call after loss to Fabio Fognini

Andy Murray fumes over the Italian crowd booing him for calling out a wrong call made the by the linesman

Andy Murray calls out the ‘unfair’ booing against him by the Italian fans over disputed call after loss to Fabio Fognini

Image Credit: Tennis TV

Andy Murray had an animated argument with the chair umpire over a wrong line call and just like that we are back with the same question. Why no hawk-eye technology or simple electronic line-calling technology at clay tournaments? It was used in Madrid and Barcelona, so why not in Rome?

Andy Murray lost to Fabio Fognini in a long 3-set thriller 4-6, 6-4, 4-6. This was the first round match at Rome and lasted for little less than 3 hours. The match was being touted as the battle of tennis dads and it had every bit of the excitement it promised. This incident happened at 4-3 (40-15) Fognini leading and serving his 5th game. He closed the game at the next point with a lob shot that Murray thought went out clearly.

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Whereas the linesman called it in. Andy challenged the call but to his dismay the chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani showed the mark saying its in. But the mark showed by Andy showed the ball clearly landed outside the white line. All of this commotion and argument led to booing from the crowd. The replay showed the ball was clearly out and the score went up to 5-3.

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This reminded me of the incident in Monte Carlo where line technology was not used too. Novak Djokovic had a similar animated argument during a match against Italian Lorenzo Musetti. And just like Andy, Novak Djokovic also got booed by the audience and also ended up losing the match.

Andy Murray is known for his outspokenness, especially on social media. He replied to a tweet by tennis tv posting his match. Ex-world no. 1 Murray called out the Italian crowd for booing and also chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani.

There might be more such drama in the Italian Open and French Open. As usual, tennis fans are going to lap it up.

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Andy Murray and Fabio Fognini’s rivalry might have fueled the incident

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Image Credit: Left – National Bank Open, Right – People

Fabio Fognini and Andy Murray have almost a fun rivalry going on between them for a decade. Both the players don’t like each other a lot on the court. In Fabio’s autobiography My Life Between the Lines he had written about Andy. “Murray and I never got along. We are two hotheads and we lose our cool pretty quickly. When we are on court we despise each other.”

The two were seen having a hilarious argument in the 2019 Shanghai Open when Murray told Fognini to “SH*T UP”. Clearly, there is a lot of history between the two players which made the incident in the first round of the Italian Open especially explosive. The crowd started booing and Andy Murray made sure that he puts his point across. Some tennis experts felt the chair umpire might have not redacted the call due to the aroused Italian audience supporting their tennis start Fabio.

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