Tennis Player Chases Umpire And Loses His Cool

This video captures the moment an Iranian tennis player named Majed Abedini loses his temper and chases after the court supervisor in a ITF Futures event in Turkey.

Abedini was playing Imran Aswat, in the second round of qualifying for a $10,000 Futures event in Antalya, Turkey. According to one British player who witnessed this, it’s not the first time Abedini has lost his temper on court

“I remember seeing this guy for the first time in 2014,” said the player, “He has played countless tournaments in Turkey and he basically lives in the hotel but if you look at his results he has barely won a match.

“We’d heard that he had had a shouting match with one of the referees the previous week so we weren’t all that surprised when it kicked off. Imran was wining pretty comfortably [taking the first set 6-0], and the guy started coming out with things like ‘I f—ed your mum’ and screaming obscenities. The court supervisor came on to give him a warning for his language.

“The first time, the Iranian guy started screaming ‘No, no, get off, not you,’ so I don’t know if it was the same referee he had already had one row with. Then there were a few more loud expletives, the court supervisor comes on again, and the guy flips. He’s got a ball in his pocked, he tries to hit it straight at the referee, but fortunately he’s not very accurate. Then he chases the referee off court and he’s trying to slam the fence down. Three referees had to come on to finally get him off the court. It’s one of the funniest moments I’ve seen on a tennis court, although it got a little bit scary at the end.

“In the qualifying events you don’t have umpires so you have to call your own lines. Of course you get a lot of expletives, you get chaos. But I’ve never seen anything come close to that.”

Abedini’s attack led to him being defaulted at 6-0, 2-0 down.

This type of event is the source of many stories about match fixing.

“I’m sorry to say I think there’s a lot going on,” said the British player. “I’ve only ever seen direct proof of it once, and that guy was disciplined by the Tennis Integrity Unit. But you hear a lot of rumours. People turn to match-fixing out of desperation, because the prize-money is so poor at lower levels: you can win the tournament and you’re still barely breaking even”.

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