The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Tursunov and his tantrums

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 05, 2006

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Sport - Tennis

Tursunov and his tantrums

WIMBLEDON: Dmitry Tursunov expects to be fined for an outburst during his fourth-round loss on Monday. If not, a few things the Russian said in his news conference — such as calling the chair umpire an ``idiot'' — should do the trick.

After losing serve in the 15th game of the fifth set to give Jarkko Nieminen an 8-7 lead, Tursunov hit a ball in anger towards chair umpire Fergus Murphy.

The Irish official ruled that Tursunov had deliberately tried to hit him and gave him a point penalty.

When Nieminen lined up to serve for the match, Murphy told the Finnish player to serve first from the "ad" court, and the score showed Tursunov trailing 15-0. Five minutes later, Nieminen completed a four-hour win.

When the match ended, Tursunov tugged at Murphy's hand and appeared to attempt to pull Murphy toward him so he could speak to him.

What did he tell him? "Good match," Tursunov deadpanned, then added: "It probably wasn't something positive, I'll tell you that."

Tursunov said he's had problems with Murphy in his last three matches that Murphy chaired. "I'm not going to go into details, but I think he's a bad umpire," Tursunov said. "Maybe it's something personal now. But I think he's terrible. You know, if the guy's an idiot, the guy's an idiot."

Nieminen, who plays Rafael Nadal in Wednesday's quarterfinals, also had a fit of temper, bouncing his racket off the court surface and into the crowd in the third game of the final set and received a point penalty himself from Murphy. "I'm usually a very calm guy," Nieminen said. "I was swinging, swinging the air, just frustrated. And then I was sweating so much, my racket slipped."

Too hot to handle

Umbrellas were up around the All England Club, and the public address announcer warned spectators about the weather. This time, however, it wasn't rain but the extreme hot weather that hit Wimbledon on Monday. The British government issued an official heat warning for parts of England as temperatures soared to 31 c (88 F).

Maria Sharapova held ice packs over the back of her neck and underarms to cool herself, and there were long queues of people at water taps filling up their empty plastic bottles.

St. John Ambulance official Mike Gibbons said first aid staff treated more than 130 people for dehydration, fainting and headaches.

Fire kills three

A fire near the All England Club on Monday left three people, including one child, dead.

Forty firefighters were called to battle the blaze at a corner store on Arthur Road, near the tennis venue, and smoke could be smelled around the tennis complex.

The bodies of a man, a woman and a child were found in the apartment.

"As a matter of course the matter will be treated as potentially suspicious," a Metropolitan Police statement said. — AP

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