American teenager Alex Michelsen experienced a heart-in-mouth moment as he contemplated a potential disqualification just 14 minutes into the 2024 Winston-Salem Open final.
Michlsen was competing in his third ATP final, all coming on US soil. He lost his previous two, both in Newport. The 19-year-old was targeting to celebrate his upcoming 20th birthday in style, and he was slightly favored to lift his first title on Saturday against the experienced Lorenzo Sonego.
But Michelsen started the match poorly, as he was reduced to a bundle of nerves by the Italian, who took a 3-0 lead. In the fourth game of the first set, Sonego manufactured another break of serve opportunity, and he instantly took it to lead 4-0.
An annoyed Michelsen reacted in frustration at losing his serve for the second time in the match and hammered his spare tennis ball directly at a spectator seated in the stands behind his opponent.
It was a complete accident. The youngster was seen clasping his hands on his mouth, feeling sorry for himself. The chair umpire, Aurelie Tourte, left her seat to check on the victim of Michelsen’s moment of rage, who reassured her that she was okay.
The official then spoke with Michelsen, presumably giving him a verbal warning. The World No. 52 crossed to the opposite side of the net to apologize to the lady sitting in the front row.
Michelsen was extremely fortunate that he was not defaulted. The chair umpire only handed him a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct, and no supervisor was called into play.
The incident once again raises serious questions about the lack of standardized protocols for dealing with situations in which players have outbursts that can have dangerous implications for officials and fans.
It was very reminiscent of Novak Djokovic’s inadvertent ball hit at a line judge at the 2021 US Open, which hurt her throat and resulted in the Serbian's automatic disqualification.
Expect that, in this case, the spectator that Michelsen hit with a tennis ball was "fine" with it. However, Veteran journalist Jon Wertheim, who spoke to Tennis Channel after the match, was critical of the decision in the Winston-Salem final.
He opined that fan reaction to "being okay" should not interfere with the decision-making process outlined in the rulebook, regardless of whether the player had no intent to cause damage.
"I'm not sure fan reaction ought to be what determines whether there's punishment or not. You've got rules in place for a reason they are not applied consistently."
"Look, nobody wants to default a player in the middle of a final. Fans paid, you know, there's TV coverage there. It's not an ideal situation, but I'm not sure how we justify Alex Michelsen being able to continue after drilling a fan despite the fan's generosity versus other players who have been defaulted from the tournaments for inadvertently tapping balls. We need some sort of uniform application of rules here."
Although Michelsen got off scot-free in the heat of the moment and continued playing in the final, he was comprehensively beaten by Sonego 0-6, 3-6. It's fair to say he was not the same player after that incident, and you can look at how it happened in the video below.