Sports will never be the same. If you thought K-Zones and instant replay put a lot of pressure on officials, try sitting there while a tennis player whips out his iPhone and snaps a photo of a controversial call in the middle of a tennis match. Sergiy Stakhovsky did exactly that during his French Open loss to Richard Gasquet on Monday.
Stakhovsky hit a shot that he believed was in but the umpire called it out. When he and Gasquet changed sides, Stakhovsky grabbed his iPhone and snapped a photo of the spot where he thought the ball landed. He later tweeted it out to his nearly 10,000 followers.
Well..here what you asked for … twitter.com/Stako_tennis/s…
— Sergiy Stakhovsky (@Stako_tennis) May 27, 2013
Based on the angle that he took the photo, it looks to me like the umpire made the right call. The only mark I see appears to be to the left of the line. Stakhovsky received a warning for the unusual stunt.
“I think he was pretty sure the ball was on the line,” Gasquet said, via SI.com’s Beyond the Baseline. “I agree it was very close. He’s a funny guy. I think he’s one of the funniest guys in the draw. I think it was a funny situation. As I said, he’s a very funny guy, smart guy, so I have no problem about it.”
I suppose simply taking a photo of the spot where a ball landed is better than going Serena Williams on a chair umpire, but it’s still unprofessional. Stakhovsky did the same thing in Munich a couple of weeks ago, and it appeared the umpire had made the right call then as well. He should probably leave the iPhone in his bag next time.
H/T SI Hot Clicks
