A costly moment of madness from Polmans
Australia’s Marc Polmans was on the cusp of reaching his first ATP Masters 1000 tournament when it all went wrong for the 26-year-old from Melbourne.
Polmans had won the first set 7-6(3) and was again in the breaker to seal the match and a place in his first-ever Masters 1000 tournament.
In the second set, the tiebreaker was 5-2 in favour of world no. 140 Polmans against Italy’s world no. 253 Stefano Napolitano.
The Italian kept himself in the match with pair of point holds including an Ace to get to 5-4. Polmans was at 5-5 and was awarded a time violation.
Polmans then had match point at 6-5. The Australian hit an approach shot that clipped the net, Napolitano played a shot low down to Polmans’ backhand and he hit the volley into the net.
As the ball rebounded from the net Polmans went to smash the ball out of the stadium, instead it caught the chair umpire from Scotland Ben Anderson directly in the face. He momentarily slumped.
This moment of madness saw the immediate disqualification of Polmans.
As a result, Polmans lost all rankings points earned and the prizemoney that he would have received.
A very costly moment. Even with an eventual loss the Australian would have collected $9440 US.
A win would have seen him earn 26 ranking points and at least $18,660.
The first-round opponent for Napolitano is a fellow qualifier Beibit Zhukayev from Kazakhstan, he is ranked at no. 302.