Mikael Ymer, the Swedish tennis player, has gotten disqualified from the Lyon Open after smashing his racket against the umpire's chair. The incident occurred after a heated rant from World number 53 towards the umpire Rogerio Santos from Brazil for not checking the ball mark on the clay.
Following the racket smashing, the 24-year-old got massively booed by the crowd at centre court as his opponent Arthur Fils of France was handed a walkover by one of the tournament officials. At that point, Fils was leading Ymer by 6-5 in the first set and ready to serve.
Moments earlier, when the umpire Santos didn’t come down from his chair to get a closer look at the ball mark on the clay, Ymer was quoted as saying on camera, “Are you telling me you’re not even going to come down and check the mark? You saw it clearly bounced on the line, so show me the mark on the line! I’ve never witnessed a ref say, ‘I’m not going to go down and check the mark.’ It doesn’t happen,” the Swede further opined.
Watch the video here:
Ymer continued playing the match after his heated rant, but when his service was broken by Fils to take a 6-5 lead, he lost his cool again and smashed the racket against the umpire’s chair while tossing the handle on the centre court. One of the tournament officials arrived at the scene and informed the umpire about disqualifying the Swede from the match. He was quoted as saying to Ymer on camera, “I would like to have a choice but you don’t give me a choice, I’m sorry.”
Notably, during his angry confrontation with umpire Santos, the World number 53 Mikael remarked that his opponent in the previous round, the Frenchman Richard Gasquet did have his request for checking the ball mark on the clay accepted.
