ATP Washington: Really thick air between Mikael Ymer and Jordan Thompson
At the Citi Open in Washington, the first-round duel between Mikael Ymer and Jordan Thompson almost came to grips. The referee intervened.
by Stefan Bergmann
last edit: Aug 05, 2021, 06:21 am
Competition is normal in competitive sports and urgently needed if you want to achieve success at the highest level. What we less like to see - and fortunately only very seldom have to - are boiled up verbal hostility, which in the worst case can lead to unsightly fistfighting if a calamitating hand does not intervene.
The same thing happened in the first-round duel of the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Washington between Mikael Ymer and Jordan Thompson. The Swede, who last week reached the quarter-finals at the Generali Open in Kitzbühel, defeated the 27-year-old Australian 3: 6, 7: 5, 6: 3 after successfully qualifying at the start of the main competition.
Ymer: "I didn't see it"
Just at the end of the game there was an eventful incident: Thompson played a volley stop that quickly forced Ymer towards the net. Although the Swede still managed to reach the ball, the man from "Down under" put the yellow felt ball into the net - clearly not acting in tension - because he obviously assumed that it had already jumped twice. The chair umpire saw the situation differently and gave the point to the Scandinavian.
"Are you going to leave it like that?" Thompson asked his opponent afterwards, exasperated. He replied, not being aware of any guilt: “I didn't see it.” Only a few moments later, Ymer ended his service game and with it the game. After a short quasi-handshake with the fists, however, the situation got completely out of control. In the end, the game master Simon Cannavan had to step between the two fighters to prevent worse.
Ymer faces another Australian in the second round, namely John Millman. One can only hope that he does not feel any desire for revenge for his compatriot.