Ben Shelton has been the latest player at Wimbledon to voice his frustrations at the chair umpire.
But, on this occasion, it seems like he was more than justified.
After all, his anger was not directed at an electronic error or a gaffe made by the umpire themself.
Instead, his protestation was aimed at his opponent, Lorenzo Sonego, for the length of time he was taking to serve.
Every word of Ben Shelton’s complaint to Wimbledon umpire
Having just lost the first set narrowly, the American was rightly frustrated.
However, the key issue he took was not with his own performance, instead honing in on Sonego’s sluggish serve technique.
Shelton would take this problem and share it with the Wimbledon umpire, claiming: ‘He can serve it when he wants, but why do I have to be sitting at the line like this? I don’t know, but from my perspective, he walks to the line and then holds me there for like 20 seconds.
‘But no matter what, he will never start before it’s down to three, two, one.
‘He gets to the line, serves after five seconds when we’ve been there for 20. And regardless of when I hit there, he’s going to hold me there until the last two seconds, and he’s going to put his hands together when it gets to one. But I’ll try to get one, two seconds quicker. But you can understand I don’t want to just be standing there like that.’
Ironically, this comes after Jarry complained to the Wimbledon umpire during his match against Cam Norrie about a similar issue.
Does tennis need to make a rule change?
The two commentators that the BBC had on for this match, Andrew Castle and John Lloyd, were both in unanimous agreement on this topic.
They felt Shelton was wholly in the right.
It was even discussed whether tennis needed to make a change to this rule in order to stop players from exploiting it regularly.
Sonego’s prolonging of his serve is not only frustrating for fans, but also players, forced to crouch down in preparation for a shot that does not come for 30 seconds.
The answer is not clear, especially after the shot clock has already caused controversy in the past.
But, Shelton’s issue is one that could become more and more prevalent in years to come, as players seek to get whatever edge they can over their opponents.
