Marc Polmans breaks his silence after he smashed a ball into the umpire’s FACE in shocking moment in China as Aussie tennis star makes brutally honest admission after failing to convert a match point
Australian tennis player Marc Polman says the chair umpire has accepted his apology after he was hit in the face with a ball hit in frustration during the Shanghai Masters qualifying tournament.
World number 140 Polmans was immediately disqualified following the incident that occurred when he lost a second match point in a two-hour, 34-minute battle with Italian Stefano Napolitano on Tuesday.
With a lead of 7-6 (7-3) 6-6 (6-6), he put a return into the net. As the ball bounced back to him, he struck it and the ball flew into the face of British official Ben Anderson from close range.
Anderson appears to have escaped serious injury. A tournament representative said he had been hit on the cheek and nose and had returned to his hotel to rest.
“An update from me – the referee, Ben, has accepted my apology for my actions – he knows it was unintentional and I shook the ball on the frame in frustration in the heat of the moment,” Polmans wrote on social media platform X on Wednesday.
Marc Polmans has apologized after punching a referee in the face during a tennis match
The Australian took to Twitter to express his regret over the ‘heat of the moment’ incident
‘We’ll both move on. It was a high-pressure situation and I should have reacted better.”
It was a virtual repeat of an incident involving Canadian Denis Shapovalov during a Davis Cup tie against Great Britain in 2017. The referee on that occasion, Arnaud Gabas, was left with a fractured eye socket.
A victory for the 26-year-old Polmans would have secured a place in the main draw of an ATP 1000 event for the first time. Instead, he will lose all the prize money and ranking points he collected during the qualifying tournament.
Further actions may follow. Referring to one of his own fines, which cost him almost A$30,000, Nick Kyrgios wrote on All told (£15,000) for the bottle shake at Queens.’
Polmans was one of seven Australians in the second and final qualifying round, four of whom reached the main draw and joined another seven compatriots in the opening round.
Top seed in qualifying Rinky Hijikata needed just 80 minutes to beat Zimbabwe’s Benjamin Lock 6-1 6-4, while James Duckworth also recorded a straight-sets win, 7-6 (8-6) 6-2 on fellow countryman James McCabe.
Polmans lost his patience after failing to convert a match point in Shanghai
Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios responded to the incident and asked how Polmans will be punished
World No. 256 Dane Sweeny was a 6-2 6-1 winner over Seongchan Hong of South Korea and World No. 292 Philip Sekulic defeated Arthur Weber of France 6-4 6-3.
However, Luke Saville was defeated 6-3 6-3 by Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan and Li Tu pushed American Aleksandar Kovacevic to three sets but lost 2-6 7-6 (10-8) 5-7.
Alex de Minaur, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Jordan Thompson, Alexei Popyrin, Max Purcell, Chris O’Connell and Aleksandar Vukic all skipped qualifying due to their ranking.
World number 2 Carlos Alcaraz will make his debut in Shanghai later this week, while defending 2019 champion Daniil Medvedev, Holger Rune, Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner and Stefanos Tsitsipas are also in the field.