2020 Olympic mixed doubles champion and world No. 14 Andrey Rublev criticized the decision to penalize him with a point during his fourth-round match at the Rome Masters against Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili (world No. 117).
The incident happened at 40-40 in the first game of the second set. Rublev swore after losing a rally, convinced that Basilashvili had not hit the ball first. Chair umpire Aurelie Tourt immediately responded to Rublev’s behavior and docked a point, giving the game to Basilashvili.
“I don’t know if it helped me. I don’t think it helped. Now we don’t know if it helped or not, because maybe without the point penalty I would have won the second set easier. Or maybe I would have lost it faster. So yes, it’s all strange… It seems to me that in the last 90 matches I behaved much worse than today and didn’t receive point penalties,” Rublev said in an on-court interview.
