Little-known Iranian tennis player, Majid Abedini, has been suspended from competition after video footage caught him chasing the tournament supervisor of the court.
Abedini was playing at the Turkey F10 Futures tournament in Antalya. In the second round of qualifying he was playing British player Imran Aswat. It is unclear as to what caused the 29-year-old to flip out, but a video of the incident, taken by Talk Tennis Training, shows the supervisor running off the court before closing the gate to barricade the Iranian in.
Tennis player chases umpire #tennis https://t.co/SlgS3ikhBU pic.twitter.com/gXSQGivnX3
— Top Tennis Training (@Tennis_Training) 18 April 2016
One witness at the event gave their account of what happened. The British player, who doesn’t wish to be named, told The Telegraph that the Iranian was swearing and saying offensive things to his opponent.
“We’d heard that he had had a shouting match with one of the referees the previous week so we weren’t all that surprised when it kicked off. Imran was winning pretty comfortably [taking the first set 6-0], and the guy started coming out with things like ‘I f—ed your mum’ and screaming obscenities. The court supervisor came on to give him a warning for his language,” the British player recalled.
“The first time, the Iranian guy started screaming ‘No, no, get off, not you,’ so I don’t know if it was the same referee he had already had one row with. Then there were a few more loud expletives, the court supervisor comes on again, and the guy flips.
“He’s got a ball in his pocket, he tries to hit it straight at the referee, but fortunately he’s not very accurate. Then he chases the referee off the court and he’s trying to slam the fence down. Three referees had to come on to finally get him off the court. It’s one of the funniest moments I’ve seen on a tennis court, although it got a little bit scary at the end.”
Following the unusual incident, Abedini was defaulted from the match after trailing 0-6, 0-2. He could now find himself banned from the sport as the ITF launches an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his behavior on Sunday.
“Mr. Abedini has been provisionally suspended in accordance with the ITF Welfare Policy and is further subject to an investigation into a possible Player Major Offence of Aggravated Behaviour,” the ITF said in a statement.
“Following this investigation, any additional sanction will be announced”.
The Iranian is currently not ranked in the world rankings after a series of unsuccessful campaigns at Turkish tournaments. Since April 2015, Abedini has players in 36 Turkish Futures tournaments and has failed to qualify for the main draw at all of them.
