Between a curious move, forced by bad weather, and an unusual error by one of the most prestigious umpires in world tennis, the Masters 1000 de Shanghaithe most important tournament of the Asian hard court tour that is animating the circuit these weeks ATPlived an eventful Monday.
The rain has not let up in that Chinese city for several days and prevented all the crossings scheduled for the weekend from being completed. On Saturday, for example, only nine games could be played and on Sunday, just four. The Qizhong complex has only one stadium with a roof and the constant fall of water left the outdoor fields unusable.
Thus, when the day started on Monday – and despite the fact that the competition started last Wednesday – there were some players already installed in the round of 16 but also others who had not yet made their debut. As the weather did not improve and with the need to at least close the second round, The organizers decided to move some duels to indoor courts, that gave a strange framework to the meetings and generated four surprises.
The fields seemed more like training fields, with improvised benches, small stands on one side, walls too close to the lines and without the traditional sponsor signs around them. And to make the situation more unusual, no electronic scoreboards. The point-to-point was carried out with the old signs, which were changed manually.
In these conditions four seeded players, who had not yet debuted, played. They were all eliminated. The Italian Lorenzo Musetti15th favorite, fell 1-, 7-6 (8-6) and 6-2 to David Goffin (66th in the ranking). The Kazakh Alexander Bublik23rd, 6-4 and 6-2 against Roman Safiullin (61°). The Russian Karen Khachanov24th, could not beat the American Marcos Giron (47th), who beat him 6-4 and 6-3. and the australian Jordan Thompson26th, lost 6-3 and 6-2 with the Dutchman Tallon Greek track (40°).
In the five matches that were played under the roof of the main stadium, also in the second round, there were no surprises: they won Taylor Fritz7th seed; Grigor Dimitrov9°; Holger Rune12°; Frances Tiafoe13°; y Flavio Cobolli28°. Although the crossing in which the Italian defeated Stan Wawrinka Something unusual did happen, which still went unnoticed.
It was in the second game of the third set. The Swiss served with the score 0-1 against. Cobolli returned the service poorly at the initial point and Carlos Bernardesone of the most respected chair umpires on the circuit, ruled 15-0 in favor of Stan. Immediately the Brazilian grabbed his radio and asked for some mineral salts for the Italian. And he didn’t compute the point or he made a mistake when scoring it.
‼️ HUGE error from Carlos Bernandes
In the game Cobolli broke Wawrinka, Carlos Bernandes accidentally made a scoring error, giving Cobolli the first point of that game despite him losing it.
Carlos Bernandes probably got distracted by asking electrolytes for Cobolli, as you can… pic.twitter.com/p7TvcYboH6
— Tennis Masterr (@tennismasterr) October 7, 2024
When in the next one, Wawrinka failed to play a short ball that his rival left very close to the net, the umpire announced 0-30 in favor of the young man born in Florence, instead of the corresponding 15-15. Nobody noticed the mistake. Not even the Swiss and his team. Cobolli got a break in that game and took a lead that he maintained until the end, to take the match 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-4) and 6-3.
The Italian, who will play this Tuesday with Novak Djokovic for a place in the second round, he dedicated some nice words to Wawrinka. “He is a legend of our sport. And it was a pleasure to play with him on this court,” he said in the post-match interview. Earlier, I had written on the camera lens “Thank you Stan.” Neither he nor the Swiss commented on Bernardes’ rude mistake, despite the fact that the video of that moment of the match went viral on the networks.