PRAGUE: Jiri Vesely on Thursday described his second-round Wimbledon opponent Alejandro Davidovich Fokina as “a bit of a nutter” after the Spaniard was knocked out of the tournament on a point penalty.
Trailing Vesely 9-7 in the fifth-set tiebreak on Wednesday, a frustrated Davidovich Fokina smashed the ball out of the court. Umpire Carlos Ramos, who had already issued an earlier warning to the Spaniard, handed him a point penalty that ended the match at 6-3, 5-7, 6-7 (2/7), 6-3, 7-6 (10/7) for Vesely in just under four hours.
The 68th-ranked Czech said Davidovich Fokina, the world number 37, had received a warning for an audible obscenity earlier in the fifth set.“I think he cursed. I know he’s a bit of a nutter. A fighter, a kind of (Boris) Becker type,” the 28-year-old told the Czech tennis magazine Tenisovy svet.
“Something like this happens once in a lifetime,” added the big-hitting Vesely. “I don’t even know what he got the point penalty for. I didn’t see what he had done. I was in the corner and just heard the announcement.”