Wimbledon umpire slammed on BBC as Novak Djokovic left irritated with point taken away
Novak Djokovic had to recompose himself after being penalised by the chair umpire twice in the very same game.
Tennis doubles icon Todd Woodbridge has taken aim at British umpire Richard Haigh for 'interjecting' himself into the men's semi-final match on Centre Court with a hindrance and time violation call on Novak Djokovic in the very same game. Djokovic was bidding for his ninth Wimbledon final against Jannik Sinner and wrapped up the opening set in little over half an hour.
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And he had just moved a break up in the second set to move closer to reaching Sunday's final. The Serbian looked in the zone, but that was disrupted in the fourth game of the second set when he was called for a 'hindrance'.
Umpire Haigh made the call after Djokovic had slid across the baseline to smash a backhand down the line and he let out a late grunt. Djokovic's grunt appeared to be more to do with him trying to quickly shift his centre of gravity to get back into the middle of the court.
But Haigh didn't see it that way with Djokovic left stunned, asking "What are you doing?". Woodbridge also didn't seem too impressed at Haigh's interruption to the match at a crucial stage.
"I feel like Richard's been waiting to make that call for a while," he said on BBC. "I'm not sure that it's worth him interjecting into the match like he has just done.
"I think that maybe could have been a word to Novak at the changeover to just be aware before giving that. That's rough." Just seconds later and Haigh was back on the microphone to hand a time violation to Djokovic for taking too long to serve.
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The 23-time Grand Slam champion was able to brush off the violation call this time and Woodbridge agreed it was the right call. However, the BBC co-commentator believes Haigh had made a rod for his own back with the first call earlier in the game.
"I had no issue with that," Woodbridge added. "But what's happened is he's inserted himself into the match. He shouldn't have got to this point but here we are."
