Viktor Troicki played a pretty forgettable match against Ernests Gulbis in the second round of the Italian Open on Wednesday, but he did have a pretty memorable meltdown.
Troicki was down a set and serving to start out the second set down 30-40. Facing a break point, Troicki hit a crosscourt backhand that went deep and appeared to clip the line. The chair umpire called it out, giving Gulbis the break to start the set. It also led to a complete unraveling from Troicki, who went off the hinges.
Troicki immediately complained about the call, leading to him and the umpire investigating the mark the ball left on the clay court. Troicki pointed out that there was no space between the mark the ball left on the court and the baseline, while the umpire refused to change his call.
“You don’t want to correct yourself. You’re wrong,” Troicki kept repeating while making a huge scene.
“From space you can see it’s there,” he said, drawing plenty of laughter.
“You are 100 percent wrong. I wouldn’t make a show out of this,” he continued.
Then around the 2:45 mark, takes the cameramen and has them come out to film a zoomed-in shot of the ball. The camera guys seemed to be loving it, too.
With all respect to Troicki, it looks like he was right in his argument. Check out where the ball landed:
The interesting part of the debate is that the umpire refused to agree that the ball covered the line. With the hawkeye technology used to review plays, as long as any part of the ball covers the line, it is considered in. That’s the exact concession the umpire was refusing to allow in this case.
Troicki lost the match 6-1, 6-1.
If you want to see another funny video from Troicki, watch this.
