WATCH: A fan’s reaction to a very loud ‘overruling’ by the chair umpire leaves Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in splits
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Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
In the first round of the Gijon Open, 3-time grand slam champion Andy Murray defeated 6th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in straight sets 7-5,6-2 to start his campaign on a positive note. This was his first victory after losing to Matteo Berrettini in the third round of the US Open. He had earlier lost to Alex De Minaur in the Laver Cup.
Fokina was the higher-ranked player in the match and was the favorite to win in front of the home crowd. He was in the match right from the start but lost the opening set courtesy of a late break of serve. There was no looking back from Murray since then. He dominated the next hour and served for the match at 5-1 in the second set.
But Fokina managed to take a break back to survive at 2-5. But during his serve in the 8th game, a very weird incident happened on the court. A clearly ‘in’ first serve was called out by the lines judge after which, the chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani overruled the call at the same time at which the lines judge quickly corrected his.
But the umpire’s announcement turned out to be shockingly loud on the speakers at the arena which startled most of the people. One of the fans’ surprised reactions was caught on camera where she could be seen clutching her chest at the sudden noise. Fokina himself couldn’t control his laugh when he saw this on the screen and so was the case with the chair umpire.
An easy road ahead for Andy Murray
Andy Murray will now face either Pedro Cachin or Alexey Vatutin in the Round of 16. Whosoever he faces, he’ll start the favorite and has a very good chance to reach the quarterfinals where he could meet third seed Roberto Bautista Agut in the quarterfinals and a possible semifinal outing with Pablo Carreno Busta if he wins the quarterfinal. As for Fokina, he’ll play at Naples next.
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Lakshya Chopra
(2595 Articles Published)