ATP Shanghai Masters plagued by player run-ins with chair umpires

Tennis fans are not discussing the stellar play at this year's ATP Shanghai Masters. While there have been some spectacular shots, the headlines have largely been devoted to top-ranked players such as Novak Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Frances Tiafoe's confrontations with chair umpires.  

Part of the issue stems from the Shanghai tournament chair umpires' desire to keep the matches going.  They have assessed time violation penalties on players in bulk. While it is true that the chair umpire operates the serve clock, they do not usually impose so many time violations, especially in harsh weather conditions when players may need to towel off or after long physical rallies where players may need an extra couple of seconds to regroup for the next point.

Djokovic noted that this is a significant change from how the ATP chair umpires have operated this season. Becoming extra vigilant with time violations at the end of the year without notifying players of the change is illogical.

"You guys want to speed up the pace of the tennis match," Djokovic said. "But at the same time we’ve got to know if we’re starting the season this way. We can’t change it midway in the season."

For his part, Tsitsipas was so angry with his time violation during his match against Daniil Medvedev that he wanted to halt play to talk to the chair umpire's supervisor.  Tiafoe's profanity-laden rant directed at the chair umpire at the end of his match was regrettable and triggered a quick social media apology.

Electronic line calling is becoming the norm in professional tennis, meaning that line judges eventually figure to be eliminated and replaced by technology to call close shots. The chair umpire's job of maintaining order and flow during matches will not become obsolete. Consistency across tournaments needs to be the norm for players and fans.