Luca Van Assche confronted the umpire after getting a time violation (Image: Tennis TV)
Luca Van Assche received a warning and a code violation after confronting the umpire at the Next Gen ATP Finals.
The Frenchman was facing Jerry Shang in the first match of the week in Jeddah when he was hit with a time violation.
Van Assche stormed over to Nacho Forcadell’s chair, trying to argue his case. But the official could only remind him of the rules, with players given just 15 seconds to be ready for the upcoming point at the Next Gen event.
The Next Gen ATP Finals uses a number of unusual and innovative rules, including a fast-4 scoring format. Players compete over best-of-five sets but each set is the first to four games, with a tiebreak at 3-3.
No-ad scoring is also used, with the winner of a deuce point taking the game. And in an attempt to speed things up, the competitors only get 15 seconds between points if the last point was fewer than three shots.
That was the case in Van Assche’s match against Shang. The world No. 128 took the first set in a tiebreak but found himself a break down at 1-3 in the second.
After a short point, he attempted to ask the ball kids for the towel but ran down the 15-second clock and was given a time violation warning by the umpire.
Van Assche had already checked the towel rules with the official earlier in the match. In previous years, players at the Next Gen ATP Finals had to collect their own towels but they can now ask ball kids to hand them over, permitted it’s within the shot clock limit.
Luca Van Assche wasn’t happy after running down the shot clock (Image: Tennis TV)
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However, the ball kids were busy retreiving balls when the French player requested the towel, making the process extend beyond 15 seconds. And Van Assche argued that it wasn’t his fault.
“I waited at least 10 seconds for a towel,” he protested, walking over to the official. “But it’s your responsibility, you see the towel is not coming, either you go before or we cannot stop every time that you want the towel,” Forcadell replied.
“They are there to help you but sometimes if it does not work, if the communication does not work or they are slower, we cannot blame them. It’s your responsibility to serve within the time.”
Van Assche doubled down, adding: “It’s not my problem if they don’t take the time. I asked for the towel like 10 times today. Never they go to take the towel.”
The umpire remained firm. “We have an issue there that we’re trying to solve but we cannot just stop every time because of that,” Forcadell explained.
When Van Assche claimed that the ball kids took more than 15 seconds to bring him the towel, the umpire gave him two options – get it himself or carry on playing.
“So I can’t have the towel?” the world No. 124 asked. “You can but you need to be faster. If you see that they do not respond, go yourself but faster. It has to be faster. We cannot stop every time,” the official concluded.
As Van Assche retreated to the baseline, he appeared to claim the rule was “bulls***” – something Forcadell picked up on, annoucning a code violation for audible obscenity.
The 20-year-old held serve after the spat but Shang went on to take the second set 4-2.