New rules, new troubles for ATP: during the match dominated against Roman Safiullin at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, Novak Djokovic had an argument with chair umpire Ignacio Forcadell, in which the Serbian champion expressed his disappointment with the shot clock, the new rule introduced by the ATP.
ADVERTISEMENT
The ball boys returned to handing out towels to the tennis players, but the shot clock activates automatically without taking into account everything that can happen between one exchange and another. The chair umpire justified himself by explaining that the rule has been in force for some time.
The Serbian champion also reiterated that no player was warned about the modalities of this rule. When Forcadell told him that the countdown starts automatically, Djokovic replied:
"I mean, I know it's not up to you, but this rule change is unbelievable. For 4 years we had a situation where we had to get the towel ourselves, now the ball boys are doing their best, but they are not trained to do it. You have adopted this new rule without even notifying a player. Honestly, it's unbelievable."
ADVERTISEMENT
And it should be noted that Nole is not the only one who has shown his dissatisfaction with the issue in recent weeks.
