Aurelie Tourte
Aurelie Tourte and Daniil Medvedev were involved in a bizarre altercation over a judgement call in the 2021 National Bank Open
Aurelie Tourte is a professional tennis umpire. She has officiated in both the ATP and WTA circuits. Presently, Tourte is one of the permanent chair umpires for ATP. Tourte is a part of an exclusive list of female umpire to have officiated a men’s singles final in a Grand Slam. She became only the fifth woman to achieve this feat at the 2021 Roland Garros.
Tourte is a French national and is famously recognised in the tennis community for her ‘hindrance’ call at the 2021 National Bank Open in Toronto. What followed the call was a bizarre altercation between Tourte and Medvedev, the player against whom the call was taken. The incident was viral in no time and fans, pundits had divided opinions over the call.
In her illustrious career, Tourte has officiated numerous top level matches and has a history of being involved in altercations with Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.
The incident occurred during a second-round match between Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Bublik at the 2021 National Bank Open in Toronto. Aurelie Tourte was in charge of the match as the chair umpire. In the third set, Tourte was forced to make a judgement call against Medvedev which infuriated the Russian. On Bublik’s serve, Medvedev chased down a drop-shot and followed it up with a lob. After Bublik retrieved it, Medvedev went for a powerful smash which hit Bublik right on his body and caused the Kazakh to lose balance and fall down. Medvedev immediately apologized and said ‘sorry’ in response to which the chair umpire called ‘hindrance’ as Medvedev spoke in between the point.
Medvedev and Bublik both had a hard time realising what exactly happened. Baffled by the call, Medvedev took a dig at the chair umpire, “Can you imagine how stupid this call is? Because I had the ball to hit. This is gonna be on tennis TV bro.”
After the video clip went viral on social media, fans had divided opinions whether the call was correct or not. Medvedev’s reaction was also up for debate.
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