American tennis player Reilly Opelka, on his page on social networks, criticized the judge who disqualified Russian representative Andrei Rublev from the ATP-500 tournament in Dubai.
“Minor league… Lineman needs to be demoted to pickleball immediately,” Opelka wrote.
26 year old Russian, disqualified in the semi-final match against Bublik with scores of 7:6 (7:4), 6:7 (5:7), 5:6.
Rublev doubted his ball went out of bounds and shouted at the line judge, calling him a “moron”. The referee did not understand anything, but another referee who understood Russian heard this insult and reported it to the match referee and translated it into English using profanity.
The supervisory authority decided to immediately disqualify Rublev.
The tennis player became enraged and tried to convince his superior that he had not sworn and that the translation of the Russian-speaking referee was not entirely correct. However, the decision remained in effect.
It was previously revealed that Rublev would withdraw from the top 5 in the world tennis rankings after the scandal in Dubai.