Shanghai Masters controversy: Marc Polmans hits ball at chair umpire out of frustration after losing match point, gets disqualified from qualifiers

Australian tennis player Marc Polmans was disqualified from the 2023 Shanghai Masters on Tuesday (October 3), after he launched a ball out of the court in frustration and it hit the chair umpire.

Polmans, the fourth seed in the Shanghai qualifiers, was contesting the second and final round of qualifying when the incident happened. He was up against World No. 253 Stefano Napolitano of Italy.

Polmans had the lead in the match, having edged out Napolitano in the opening set tiebreak 7-6 (3). Their second set similarly went all the way to the tiebreak, where the Aussie gave himself an opportunity to close out the match in his favor by producing a match point at 6-6 (6-5).

However, Marc Polmans faltered. He attempted a volley at the net, which did not cross over to his opponent’s side. Having lost the match point, the World No. 140 whacked the ball in frustration and it accidentally hit the chair umpire.

Polmans, who was hoping to make his main draw debut at a Masters 1000 tournament, was immediately disqualified. This led to Stefano Napolitano being declared the winner at 6-7 (3), 6-6 (6-6) and advancing to the main draw.

Watch the video here:

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Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev lead the Shanghai Masters 2023 lineup

Daniil Medvedev defeated Alexander Zverev in the 2019 final to lift the trophy in Shanghai

The main draw event of the 2023 Shanghai Masters is scheduled from October 4-15.

In World No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s absence, the tournaments’ competitive playing field will be headlined by World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz and World No. 3 Daniil Medvedev, who are currently contesting the semifinals of the ATP 500 China Open in Beijing.

World No. 4 Holger Rune and World No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas feature as the third and fourth seeds.

Meanwhile, Andrey Rublev, Jannik Sinner, Taylor Fritz and Casper Ruud complete the Top-8 lineup. They are the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth seeds, respectively.

Alcaraz-Fritz, Medvedev-Sinner, Rune-Ruud and Tsitsipas-Rublev are the projected quarterfinals for the Masters 1000 tournament.

Following the expansion of the main draw at this year’s Madrid Open and Italian Open, the Shanghai Masters, too, is set to feature 96 players in the main draw for the first time. The tournament previously hosted only 56 players.

The top 32 players out of the 96 competitors have been seeded and will have a bye in the opening round.

It is worth noting that 2023 marks Shanghai Masters’ first edition since 2019. The tournament was canceled for three years due to the COVID-19 outbreak in China, and Daniil Medvedev was the last player to lift the trophy.