Holger Rune is fighting against Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinal at the 2023 Italian Open in Rome and he's very angry with umpire Mohamed Lahyani.
In the sixth game of the second set, the young Dane was down 2-3, but he was leading 40-30 on his serve as he had a game point. After one of Djokovic's strokes, Rune stopped the play, signalizing that the ball was out.
Umpire Lahyani, with who Rune had an argument last year already, went to check the ball mark and according to his opinion, it was in, resulting in a point for Djokovic. However, as the replay showed, the ball was out and the 20-year-old should have won the point.
He subsequently lost the game, resulting in a one-break advantage for his opponent. But it's not the first time that we saw a mistake from an umpire during this clay-court season. It was Lahyani who made another bad call in Andy Murray's match and Djokovic had the same experience in Monte Carlo with umpire Aurelie Tourte.
And Rune was very angry about losing the point that he believed should have been won by him. During the changeover after losing the subsequent game, he unleashed at the umpire Mohamed Lahyani.
"Listen to me, listen to me! You are an absolute joke man. Do you get punished for your mistakes? Can you answer my question? Because when we make a mistake, we get a fine, but you don't. So please respect the player. It's an absolute joke, this guy is a joke. And again it's umpire that makes me look like a bad guy, it's always the umpire that makes me look like a bad guy."
Even Patrick Mouratoglou stood up in the Dane's box and attempted to calm him down as supervisor Carlos Sanches appeared on the court and discussed the situation with Rune who was visibly upset.
Soon enough, we shouldn't see similar calls and mistakes by umpires, as the ATP plans to bring electronic line calling to all events, starting in 2025.
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