Karolina Pliskova Hits Umpire’s Chair With Racket After Loss.
Forget the weak beeves you’ve been served in the past, all the gristly cheap stuff, and ready your palate for Grade-A Tennis Beef. Well-bred cows were fed only foraged wild grasses and massaged six to eight times daily to produce beef of this lusciously marbled quality. Appreciate it.
Karolina Pliskova, the Czech former world No. 1 and the No. 6 seed at the Italian Open, caught an atrocious call at 5-5 of the deciding set in her second-round match against Greece’s Maria Sakkari.
The linesperson called that ball out, but couldn’t point out a ball mark in the clay; the umpire couldn’t see a mark either, but decided not to overrule the call; a supervisor was called, but could do nothing to fix the situation. On replay, you can clearly see Pliskova’s ball landing inside the court:
Unfortunate call for Pliskova. pic.twitter.com/qT3ZiVsn69
— Tennis GIFs 🎾🎥 (@tennis_gifs) May 16, 2018
Pliskova went on to lose that game and would not forget it. Sakkari served out the match to win 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, notching the biggest upset of her career, and the two players shook hands at the net. Then, after faking a handshake with the umpire, Pliskova let her know what she really thought about her call. Sakkari wisely took a step back.
Verbal and even physical intimidation, yup, seen those before, but a direct racket assault on the chair the umpire sits on, hard enough to break the chair—dear god that beef is fresh. And Pliskova’s coach Tomas Krupa even found a way to enhance its flavor.
