WATCH: Frances Tiafoe and Alexander Zverev swear at umpires in furious rants over Shanghai controversies
Frances Tiafoe and Alexander Zverev both swore at umpires after controversial calls in their matches at the 2024 Shanghai Masters.
Tiafoe fell to a 7-5, 5-7, 6-7(5) defeat to world No 61 Roman Safiullin in the third round of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
The world No 17 battled back from a 2-5 deficit in the third set to force a tiebreak, but narrowly lost following a contentious umpiring call at a crucial moment.
At 5-5 in the tiebreak, Tiafoe lost his first serve after he was given a time violation by the chair umpire.
The American argued this was wrong as he had tossed the ball up, although it did not look as if he had done this with the intention of serving.
Tiafoe then lost the next two points to lose the match, after which he furiously shouted at the umpire, who he refused to shake hands with.
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“F*** you! F*** you, man. Seriously, f*** you! You f***ed me in this f***ing match,” Tiafoe said.
The 26-year-old has since issued an apology and expressed his disappointment at his behaviour in a post on his Instagram story.
“I really apologise for the way I acted tonight,” Tiafoe wrote. “That is not who I am and not how I ever want to treat people.
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“I let my frustration in the heat of the moment get the best of me and I’m extremely disappointed with how I handled the situation.
“That’s not acceptable behaviour and I want to apologise to the umpire, the tournament, and the fans. I’ll be better for y’all.”
Following the Tiafoe incident, Zverev launched into his own tirade at an umpire during his 7-6(6), 2-6, 7-6(5) third round win against Tallon Griekspoor in Shanghai.
After umpire Mohamed Lahyani ruled a Griekspoor shot had bounced twice before Zverev reached it, the German complained about the call and the standard of umpiring at the event. The replay clearly showed the ball had bounced twice and Lahyani had made the right decision.
“How are you calling that? I got the ball completely clean. You guys, the umpires, are f***ing up the whole tournament this year, completely,” Zverev said.
“Carlos Bernardes completely messed up Stan [Wawrinka]’s match, the guy who did Tiafoe’s match completely messed up Tiafoe’s match, and now this.”
Zverev was given a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct, which led him to rant about how many matches he has played this year.
“I’ve played probably, I’ve played more than 80 matches this year, with injuries, with illness, with everything,” the world No 3 continued.
“And I cannot be bothered to go to China in October, for you to screw up this. I cannot – this is not possible. I’ve been playing for nine months now.”
The 27-year-old resumed his outburst at Lahyani during the changeover: “Every Grand Slam final I play, I am losing because of your guys’ mistake.
Zverev on umpire: “Every grand slam final I play I lose because of you guys”pic.twitter.com/lBx81ZooiW
— (@vikash110497) October 8, 2024
“I am here running my ass off, you guys still do mistakes. You guys decide the whole match, you guys decide the outcome of tournaments, every week.”
