MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Alexander Zverev was bothered by an officiating call caused by a bird’s feather during his quarterfinal win over Tommy Paul at the Australian Open. Both players found it hard to let go of a previous, more obvious miss.
The second-seeded Zverev was down 4-2 in the second set Tuesday when Paul saved two break points. With the game in the balance, chair umpire Nacho Forcadell called a let and ordered a replay of a point when he saw a white feather drop into Zverev’s eyeline as the German player was in his backswing.
“What? A feather? There’s millions of them on the court. There's one there. There's one there,” Zverev said as he approached the official while holding up a feather and pointing at some others.
After completing a 7-6 (1), 7-6 (0), 2-6, 6-1 victory, Zverev laughed when asked about the feather, saying he'd never heard of it happening before.
“Not sure it was a hindrance to anybody. It’s not like a hard object. Like even if the tennis ball hits the feather, it doesn’t really change anything,” he said.
Zverev was already heated earlier in that game, when a spectator yelled “out” during a point that he lost. Zverev complained about it to Forcadell, who asked the crowd not to shout during points. After losing the following point, Zverev was warned about showing too much frustration.
After the feather episode, Zverev grasped the net to pause for a while before going back to work.
“Maybe the umpire did the right call and maybe not, I have no idea," he said. "But it was a bit frustrating because obviously Tommy then would get a first serve, and he won the point with that serve as well. So it was a bit much happening in that stage.”
Zverev held it together enough to save a set point, recover a service break and dominate the tiebreaker, similar to his winning sequence in the first.
“I feel like I stole both of those sets in a way, because he was playing better than me and he was serving for both of those sets,” Zverev said. “In the tiebreak I played quite well. He maybe missed a little bit more than he should have. Yeah, I’m happy that I won in four sets because this was a difficult one.”
No. 12-seeded Paul unraveled in the opening tiebreaker, and it didn't help his cause when one of his serves appeared to clip the net but no let was called by the chair umpire. There's no automatic let machines at the Australian Open.
Paul lost the point and questioned the chair umpire, but later said “that didn’t lose me the match or anything.”
“I was already down, like, 4-1 in the breaker,” he said. “I hit a serve, and it was a let, but the chair didn’t see it. I just didn’t know that there was no automatic ... let machine here.”
Zverev said it's “quite ridiculous” that there hasn't been an automatic signal for lets at recent Grand Slam events.
“Every single corner of everything has a camera. We have video review and all the high-end technologies that we can possibly have. But a simple let machine that we’ve been using for the past 25 years is not available at a Grand Slam?" he said.
“To be honest, the point that Tommy Paul complained about, it was an incredibly clear let," Zverev added. "I didn’t know what to do in that situation. I have to continue playing because if there’s no call and I stop playing, then it’s a loss of point for me.”
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