Watch: Fokina gets knocked out of Wimbledon after smashing ball out of court
Fokina made an unforced error during the tie-breaker that gave Vesely a 9-7 lead, leading to an angry outburst from the Spanish tennis star which eventually led to his ouster from the Wimbledon Championships.
It was a rather unusual way of being knocked out for Alejandro Fokina during his Wimbledon second-round match against Jiri Vesely on Wednesday.
It had been a marathon match between the two on Court 17, with Vesely leading 9-7 in the tie-breaker of the final set. While the Czech Vesely had won the first set 6-3, Fokina made a strong comeback to win the next two 7-5, 7-6. Vesely stayed alive with another 6-3 win in the fourth before the final set went to a tie-breaker.
Fokina made an unforced error during the tie-breaker that gave Vesely a 9-7 lead, leading to an angry outburst from the Spanish tennis star which eventually led to his ouster from the Wimbledon Championships.
Following the error, Fokina angrily hit a ball out of the court before preparing to serve to save a double-match point. The chair umpire termed the offense 'ball abuse', and imposed a point penalty on Fokina, that eventually handed the win to Vesely.
Watch the incident:
Tennis great John McEnroe wasn't very pleased with the decision, however.
"I don't agree with it. That's crazy… what a lousy way to end it," McEnroe told ESPN following the game.
Davidovich Fokina had been cited for a different code violation earlier. When umpire Ramos made the match-ending call, Davidovich Fokina questioned the ruling, saying his two citations were for different infractions.
But that doesn't matter: Two such violations during one match result in a point being awarded to the opponent. This one happened to come right after Davidovich Fokina missed a forehand to give Vesely a 9-7 edge in the first-to-10-points, win-by-two final-set tiebreaker.
Vesely now moves on to face 30th-seeded Tommy Paul of the United States in the third round.
