First it was the NBA; now it’s tennis.
Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov wants the sport to crack down on hecklers after he was irritated by a spectator at the Italian Open Monday.
During the second set of his 7-6 3-6 6-3 victory over Italian Lorenzo Sonego in Rome, Shapovalov crossed the net to show the umpire a ball marking, which earned him a point penalty and boos from the crowd. He eventually told a fan to “shut the f— up.”
“He was just telling me to get off the court, get out of there, waving me off the court,” Shapovalov said at a press conference. “Trying to obviously get under my skin or whatnot.
“I think the umpire just needs to keep an eye on it if a player mentions something.
“The reason why [the heckler] didn’t get kicked out was because [the umpire] told me he didn’t see what happened. That’s very understandable. I feel like he kept an eye on him after that. It didn’t bother me after that.”
