Coup Droit wrote:

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I couldn't make it today (work reared its ugly head) but a good friend of mine was their all day, gave a blow by blow description on the phone and so this is basically their report on Dan-gate:

Copil plays well on grass, Dan looked a bit edgy from the go. Couple of slightly dodgy linecalls but not all against Dan so nothing major.

Towards the end of the first set, Copil hit a deep ball that hit the baseline and reared up rather. Dan then lost it, shouting that there was way too much chalk on the lines, that he'd complained about this already, that no one had listened, that the line was 'like a trampoline', etc. etc. He ranted rather at the umpire and also against the club, pretty sarcastic. He then used the 'f' word (not at anyone, more as a grumble, but all the spectators could hear).

Got a code violation. This sent him off into one - partly because the umpire said it was for 'a combination of factors' and Dan said that wasn't allowed.

However, net net, this seemed to blow over. Tennis resumed. All good. Dan lost the first set but playing properly, not chucking it.

Everyone assumed it was now all in the past. But....

When they sat down at the end of the set, Dan was like a dog with a flea, he wouldn't let it drop, kept going at the umpire, the referee guy then came out (don't know who called him), more mega complaints (about not much) and this is when the crowd got antsy - Copil was patiently waiting on the baseline and Dan was just ranting, about nothing anyone could quite understand.

So as he (finally) came down the main end to serve, the crowd were riled. Dan shouted something. Got a point warning. Some bloke in the crowd shouted out 'just grow up and get on with it'. Dan turned and shouted 'so you're all Romanians now?' Another bloke started shouting 'come on, Marius'.

Apparently, it was all rather ugly. Anyway, he then got the game penalty.

And seemingly the rest of the match was OK - Dan played properly (although well out of sorts) and there was nothing else to report except he lost, shook hands with Copil, not with the umpire and came off shouting 'he always wants to get involved, involved, involved' (history with that umpire?)

My mate's take was that the umpire could have handled it better. And the crowd had some real old farts who understood nothing about tennis or what is involved.

But Dan was almost looking for a way to blow up, bringing it up all over again, when it was done and there was nothing really to bring up anyway - too much chalk on a line is hardly worth getting in a stew about and just because you (and only you?) have told the club, doesn't mean they have to do anything about it. Even for the biggest Dan fan, it wasn't attractive, or warranted, or effective.

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This description is consistent with what could be determined from the live stream. At the end of the day Dan was obviously at fault because even if the umpire handled things badly and the crowd were a bunch of miserable old farts a professional tennis player should be able to deal with that. Getting yourself a game penalty on serve is dumb at the best of times and when you are already a set down on grass it is utter madness. Regardless of the circumstances he lost a very winnable match and the only person to blame for that is himself.

In his defence I think he is right that a code violation should not be given for a "combination of factors" and having seen him play on scores of occasions one of the thing he really hates is weak umpire who tries to fudge things. He will normally take a code violation on the chin but often reacts with anger to informal warnings, I once saw him berate an umpire by saying "Give my an effing code violation then, do your job properly". 

When it comes down to it I think we all know that Dan has his flaws and while some of them can be ironed out his basic personality will never change, for better or worse it is who he is and it is part of why he is a good tennis player. As I said earlier it is not by chance that so many of his good results have come indoors but I also think it is not by chance that he tends to play well in America where the attitude around the sport is much closer to him personally than what we often see in Britain. Dan is just so not Surbiton and I think his comment of "are you Romanians" was either genuine bafflement or utter disgust on his part that a British crowd wouldn't automatically side with a British player. 

Sounds like CD and I have been going on alternate days, which is a pity because it would have been nice to say hello!

I was at the Evo match too, in the area of the court where it was all kicking off, and CD's friend's report is pretty accurate.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was 'previous' with the umpire - that might explain a lot, including the fact that Dan was getting annoyed long before the call that triggered the events that led to the penalties. When it did finally really kick off, it started off as a relatively minor issue over a bad call (and he was indeed getting the odd bad call to my eyes, and I was just behind the line where some of those calls were coming from) linked to there being an excessive amount of chalk on the lines. He didn't like the way the umpire reacted and then just wouldn't let it go.

The one missing link in CD's friend's report is that Dan went off court at the end of the set (I was talking to someone at the time, so not sure if it was a toilet break or just a quick detour out the side to cool down) and the referee, who must have been hanging around there (unless it was a line umpire who'd accompanied him off court), came back with him and reported to the umpire something Dan had said while he was off court. The umpire imposed a penalty for that, which incensed Dan even further - he admitted that he had sworn while off court but argued that it's against the rules to penalise a player for an audible obscenity uttered off court out of earshot of the crowd and any officials on court at the time.

I think the umpire must then have claimed that he had heard it too, to which Dan said something like "you know you didn't, you're bloody lying" (and I think that would have been a lie, *IF* that's what the umpire did say - the real issue was whether he could be penalised for something heard off-court) and things then got even more heated.

Dan was probably in the right about some of this but he wasn't doing himself any good by making such a mountain out of it all and I'm not really surprised that some of the crowd started to get a bit annoyed with him and took pity on the officials and his opponent - the "are you Romanian" and "I don't .... care what you .... think" to the crowd gave the rest of us a wry laugh. I don't think the crowd should have got involved but I even found myself, for his own sake, wanting to shout at him to put a sock in it, stop self-destructing and concentrate on winning the match (though of course I didn't)

Also, whatever Surbiton may be like as a place, the venue seems to me nowhere near as snotty as Queen's (or even Wimbledon), so to characterise it as a Queen's-type crowd would be unfair. Because it's "only" a Challenger, most of the people there are committed fans like us and the club has laid on a brilliant event - I would always choose it over Queen's from now on, even if there wasn't such a huge discrepancy in the ticket price. The crowd as a whole was very supportive when he got his head down later on, albeit too late, and started to play a lot better.

On the plus side, you couldn't fault Dan's commitment today - his competitive intensity was very high and he kept going for it until the very end (even if an exhortation from someone in the crowd to break in the final game produced something like "it's gonna be tough against a serve like that" - but that could be taken as realistic rather than defeatist!) and he hit some beautiful winners at times.

Copil really has become a GB heart breaker this week (4 wins against Brits in a row now) and he's remarkably effective on grass relative to his ranking - surprisingly so given that he's Romanian! Still, I'm sure Dan could have beaten him despite the odd dodgy call if he hadn't let the bad calls, etc, get into his head, and giving away a service game for free when you're playing someone who's serving so well can never be a good idea.

Unless Dan can push on up the rankings significantly Surbiton will remain a good fit in terms of his grass court schedule. I can understand why he might find the environment tedious in the extreme as an elite athlete frustrated at loosing the first set against an opponent playing well and faced with some of the inconsistencies that come with playing on grass.

For understandable reasons the level of officiating on the challenger tour by its very nature is not going to be comparible with the level of play or experience of seasoned touring professionals who do nothing but play. For umpires at this level it is not their primary source of income, and although enthusiasts and committed it is more of a serious hobby. I have briefly had the pleasure of the company of the umpire who dealt with Johnny Mac's tantrum at Wimbledon and hew as a dentist from if I remember correctly Berkshire.

Indeed in a bizzare way some of the heckling also illustrated why the UK despite being well resourced is a relative tennis backwater and was consistent with a couple of posh blokes heckling a naughty teenager off the estate for messing around at a village fete.

Regardless it is not going to change much over the peak years of Dan's career and he needs to do what he needs to do to make the absolute most of it, no time left for putting it down as another lesson learnt more an opportunity spurned, his time is now!

Jaggy1876 wrote:

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Surbiton sounds likes a place I won't be visiting anytime soon. Tory seat I take it?

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 Surbiton is classic middle class suburbia on the London / Surrey border (The Good Life was set there) and politically is Tory / Lib Dem marginal. Definitely nothing like Queen's but certainly not Dan's cup of tea, although Dan being Dan he can pick a fight with anybody. 

steven wrote:

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The one missing link in CD's friend's report is that Dan went off court at the end of the set (I was talking to someone at the time, so not sure if it was a toilet break or just a quick detour out the side to cool down) and the referee, who must have been hanging around there (unless it was a line umpire who'd accompanied him off court), came back with him and reported to the umpire something Dan had said while he was off court. The umpire imposed a penalty for that, which incensed Dan even further - he admitted that he had sworn while off court but argued that it's against the rules to penalise a player for an audible obscenity uttered off court out of earshot of the crowd and any officials on court at the time.

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 Well Dan is wrong about one thing, it is perfectly within the rules to give a code violation for something that has happened off court. If however he has gone for a toilet break and was just venting a bit of steam and only an official heard him swear then it really is exceptionally petty to give a code violation for that. It doesn't surprise me though, I once overheard two line judges discussing how happy they were that Evo lost a match with one of them referring to him as a "vile little yob".