Daniel Evans was left fuming after his Roland Garros singles defeat and clearly directed his anger at the chair umpire and tennis authorities.
Evans fell in straight sets to 13th seed Holger Rune on Tuesday. While the scoreline looked one-sided, the Brton led the Dane 4-2 in the third set before surrounding his momentum for what he perceived as poor umpiring.
Rune won four straight games to complete a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory, setting up a second-round meeting against Italy's Flavio Cobolli. After the match, Evans spoke to iNews, where he alleged to have been hard done by poor officiating for a second tournament in a row.
Almost six weeks ago, Evan's match against Fabio Fognini at the Italian Open was overshadowed by a contentious line call by Mohamed Lahyani, who picked the wrong ball mark, deeming that the Italian had fired a clean winner that landed on the line.
Despite the British one-hander's protest to the experienced Swedish umpire, Lahyani stood by his initial call. On Tuesday evening, Evans felt his momentum was disrupted when play stopped following a lengthy dialogue between Rune and the chair umpire Jaume Campistol.
"I’m fed up with the umpires, flat full stop. I’m waiting to serve. It’s freezing on the court. The match was flowing great and then just stopped in the middle. That’s not the reason I lost and that’s just part of the issue, part of the problem, but he’ll be back in work again tomorrow."
The 34-year-old revealed that the organizers of the Rome Masters penalized him for his behavior following the controversial call earlier this month. Evans believes tennis officials are not held accountable for their own mistakes, and it is players who pay the ultimate price.
"In rugby they get 10 metres or whatever, squash you’re not allowed, it’s no talking. We just sit there and have a conversation. We’ve seen many cases of it. I actually got fined in Rome for my language."
"I made a point of looking at my prize money receipt and I was fined. That’s the tour for you, isn’t it? The powers that be don’t have to answer the questions, it’s the players. It’s disappointing, really."
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