No. 7 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina loses second round Wimbledon match on point penalty

The Wimbledon men’s singles No. 7 seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina has lost in particularly dramatic fashion on Wednesday, with a point penalty for behavior assessed ahead of what was supposed to be match point.

This somewhat innocuous attack of a ball was considered “ball abuse,” and the referee assessed a point penalty at 9-7 in the fifth set tiebreaker. Fifth set tiebreakers are played to 10 points, and so...

That’ll do it. The official said “point penalty, ball abuse” and ended the match on the spot. Here’s the full exchange, though in the video below you can’t see Fokina hitting the ball. But you can certainly figure out when it happened.

Full credit to Fokina for still shaking the official’s hand after the decision, and though he did continue a discussion with him while still in the chair, it seemed very respectful.

So it’s a rare tennis walkoff win for Jiří Veselý of the Czech Republic, who moves on to the third round over his favored opponent. Veselý’s pre-tournament odds to win Wembley sat at +50000 on DraftKings Sportsbook, while Fokina was at +40000.