British No.2 Dan Evans dropped just nine games in his latest match at the Australian Open but the talking point was an incident involving a controversial call made by the umpire.
The world No.30 cruised to a comfortable 6-4, 6-4, 6-1, win over Jeremy Chardy in which he dropped serve only once. Evans’ latest performance saw him produce a total of 31 winners as he capitalised on a costly 43 unforced errors made by his opponent. It is only the third time in his career that he has reached the third round of the tournament after 2017 and 2022.
During their clash, Chardy released an outburst of frustration after a call against him was made in the seventh game. Facing a break point, a ball fell out of the Frenchman’s pocket during play which normally results in the umpire calling for the rally to be stopped and replayed. However, umpire Miriam Bley didn’t notice the ball falling out of Chardy’s pocket and instead awarded the point to Evans. Prompting an angry Chardy to call for a tournament supervisor but the decision wasn’t reversed.
“It’s a big mistake from the umpire. I was angry because she should stop straightaway, and she says she didn’t even see the ball,” The Independent quoted Chardy as saying after the match.
“I don’t know what she’s doing because she doesn’t call in or out, she just called the score, and if she doesn’t watch the point, I don’t know why she’s on the chair. So I was p****d, and I was even more p****d when she didn’t tell me she made the mistake.”
Chardy is a veteran of the men’s Tour with this year’s Australian Open being his 55th appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam. He produced his best-ever Grand Slam result at the tournament back in 2013 when he reached the quarter-finals before losing to Andy Murray.
Continuing to voice his frustration, the 35-year-old said umpires should face penalties for making mistakes like players do on the Tour.
“It’s what I said to her. If I miss a point, then break my racket, I will get fined. You can do a huge mistake and nothing will happen to you. So I think this is not fair.” He said.
As for Evans, he admitted afterwards that he was a bit flabbergasted about events that took place during his match but refused to take sides in the argument.
“I don’t really know what to make of what happened. I don’t really know who was in the right and who was in the wrong. I didn’t see it happen. It was just a pretty awkward situation,” he said.
Evans now faces a tough clash with fifth seed Andrey Rublev on Friday who defeated Emil Ruusuvuori in four sets. He has a win-loss record of 5-25 against top-10 opponents heading into that match.
