“How can this happen?”: Referee “steals” tennis star crucial point and Kyrgios freaks out

“How can this happen?”
Referee “steals” tennis star crucial point and Kyrgios freaks out

October 8, 2024, 8:29 a.m

Stan Wawrinka is very unlucky at the Masters tournament in Shanghai: The veteran plays a strong match against 17-year-old Flavio Cobolli, then the referee intervenes in the game in a strange way – and decides the crime.

Stan Wawrinka is cheated out of a point by the chair referee – and loses his second round match against the Italian Flavio Cobolli at the Masters tournament in Shanghai. The 39-year-old Swiss, three-time Grand Slam winner, fought a close match with Cobolli, who is 17 years younger, and the opponents pushed each other into the third set after two tiebreaks.

One of the strangest scenes of recent years on the professional tour occurred there: chair referee Carlos Bernardes awarded the first point of the game to Cobolli in the first game of the deciding set when Wawrinka was serving – even though it had belonged to the 39-year-old Wawrinka. Bernardes called out the correct score, but because the referee had to deal with electrolytes for Cobolli, who was exhausted after two marathon sets, he was apparently too distracted to put the score on the scoreboard correctly.

Cobolli got the second point of the game quite regularly – and instead of 15:15, the scoreboard read 0:30. Because no one noticed the distracted Bernardes’ faux pas – neither the players nor their teams – Cobolli grabbed the only break of the entire match and won 6:7, 7:6, 6:3. Cobolli will play against Novak Djokovic in the third round of the Masters tournament, which is worth almost nine million dollars, and Wawrinka has to travel home.

“How can this happen?”

Neither von Wawrinka nor Cobolli initially responded to the serious incident that followed, and the professional organization ATP also did not comment. Wawrinka’s colleague Nick Kyrgios raged violently: “BERNARDES SHOULD HAVE BEEN FILED YEARS AGO. HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN? Potato,” wrote the Australian professional, who is currently working on his return to the professional tour. Earlier this season, Bernardes, who has refereed on the ATP Tour since 1992, announced that this season would be his last.

Wawrinka, once number three in the world rankings and now ranked 236th, has to continue to fight his way through a complicated season: the Swiss has only won six matches this season, never two in a row. Now the resistance was too strong again – even from outside the pitch. After all: opponent Cobolli revealed after the dramatic match with the curious Volte that Wawrinka was his great idol in his youth. “Grazie Stan,” the 22-year-old then wrote into the camera. The disappointed Wawrinka acknowledged this on X with various hearts. He refrained from commenting on the serious points theft that followed.