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2012-01-22 02:28:51
Bad calls happen. We all know this. It’s woven into the fabric of tennis because we use humans as lines people and chair umpires. Listen to Serena Williams talk about it if you want a REALLY interesting and...er... colorful dissertation on the topic. It’s not always the stuff of cloaks and daggers. Sometimes umpires just....get it wrong.
It isn’t very often that they get it wrong twice in about 15 seconds though. To use the common vernacular (while keeping in mind that we prefer not to use profanity on TennisTalk), David Nalbandian got hung out to dry. Taken for a ride. Cheated. Other apropos profanity.
To be fair to Kader Nouni, I doubt if he has a personal vendetta against Nalbs. I mean, I TRULY believe he thought Isner’s serve was in when he overruled the linesperson at a critical juncture of the match even though it was pretty clearly out. And he probably didn’t realize that the way he was whispering into the microphone meant that there was almost no chance that ANYONE, including Nalby, Isner, the crowd and the television viewing audience heard that he overruled over the loud cheering/gasping of the crowd.
All of that would have been forgivable (I guess) because we have the CHALLENGE SYSTEM. The very protection players have against such...misunderstandings. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either, which is where the eyerolling stops and the outrage starts. Once Nalbandian finally realized that Nouni had overruled the lines person, he tried to challenge. A challenge that would have revealed that Nouni was completely wrong. Only he wasn’t allowed to. “Too late” Nouni chirped.
So Nalby lost the game, he lost the match and he was rightly furious. Heck, I was furious for him. Well, apparently when he went to the locker room, he was beset upon by somebody waiting to give him a drug test. After said test, Mr. Nalbandian was washing his hands and was accused of throwing water on an ATP assistant.
What? $8000 because somebody got wet? With some water???? Nalbandian says, “I strongly deny throwing water at an ATP assistant after the match against Isner. While he found me washing my hands during the anti-doping test, unbelievably the doctor in charge accused me of throwing water at him.”
Now, I wasn’t in the men’s locker room during David Nalbandian’s drug test, so I can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t sound like he took a bucket, filled it with icy water and doused anyone. Sounds to me like he was shaking his hands a little too vigorously after he washed them (he was livid after all) and got somebody wet. Okay, so not particularly nice. But $8000? Seriously? For a guy that just got cheated on the court? Marcos Baghdatis snaps 4 rackets on a changeover and gets an $800 fine and Nalbs gets this?
Outrageous and embarrassing, that’s what this is.
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Pretty big fine for something (mysterious) that happened in the locker room after a player lost a tight match.
smr , 1/23/12 5:32 PM
smr - that's the odd thing. I could see if they said he'd thrown a water BOTTLE at somebody and hurt them. But WATER? It's like there is some piece to this that hasn't been revealed. Can't think what it could be though.
Grigor Dimitrov didn't get an $8000 fine for physically assaulting a chair umpire for crying out loud.
cherylmurray , 1/23/12 5:49 PM
This all stinks to high heaven. Something just doesn't seem right about this so-called incident in the locker room. Whatever happened, this $8000 fine seems inappropriate.
As far as what happened on the court, I agree with Cheryl that the most unforgivable part of it was Nouni's absolute and absurd refusal to allow Nalby to challenge.
When they played it back a few times on espn, even the next day, you could clearly hear the linesperson call the ball out. However, you could not hear the chair umpire overrule. No one heard him, not the players, certainly not the crowd as they were way too loud. You could see Isner first start to challenge and then Nalby was looking at him in confusion. It was only when the chair umpire told Nalby that he had overruled the original call, that Nalby took a quick look at the mark and then asked to challenge.
This whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth and now this big fine on top of it, is like rubbing salt in the wound. That's just too much.
Nativenewyorker , 1/24/12 12:42 AM
I actually was at the match. I was sitting above the baseline on Nalby's side of the court. People in the stands heard the overrule, I for sure did.
It was so confusing, as most of us in the stands supported the Nouni's decision, thinking Nalby waited way too long to challenge & ump was right to refuse him to do so.
Pity how one bad call, can stuff up a whole match, esp at this day & age, w video review available...Once I saw the TV footage I realised what happened.
bianca , 1/24/12 2:49 AM
Interesting perspective, bianca. Thank you for sharing. I didn't hear it at home and it was obvious by the confusion on his face that David didn't hear it either. Hawk Eye showed the serve wide, so Nouni's overrule was incorrect. It was just bad all the way around.
cherylmurray , 1/24/12 3:14 AM
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Something is wrong about drug test: obviously Kader Nouni is the one who had to undergo test instead of David Nalbandian. Or, better say, such test is appropriate for those who keep such an excuse for chair umpire to decide what player should be their victim due to their poor ruling. If Kader Nouni did anything like this to any US player or Federer or Nadal, that would have been his last ruling on any Gran Slam for sure. This way it's just fine amount of money taken from a player who can't make too much harm to thief dressed as chair umpire and placed on high stool to protect his stupid decisions
vjakov , 1/23/12 5:17 PM