Newly crowned Thailand Open champion Dayana Yastremska has been accused poor sportsmanship during her recent match against Australia’s Anja Tomljanovic.
The 18-year-old has been accused by players such as Nick Kyrgios and John Millman of using a tactical time out to disrupt the momentum of her opponent. In the final of the Thailand Open on Sunday, the Ukrainian was trailing the final set by 2-5 before calling for a medical time out. Upon resumption, Yastremska won four straight games in a row and was moving freely around the court with little difficulty.
During the break to the match, Tomljanovic questioned umpire Jenny Zhang about the reason why her opponent has decided to call a trainer.
“No, she didn’t tell me,” Zhang replied.
“Every umpire is supposed to ask a player … I always get asked,” Tomljanovic replied.
“I cannot deny her,” Zhang said.
Tactical time outs are prohibited in tennis, but it is hard for umpires to prove that a player is faking their injury. Nevertheless Kyrgios, who is the boyfriend of Tomljanovic, described the time out as ‘trash.’ Meanwhile, former player and coach of Karolina Pliskova Rennae Stubbs replied to Kyrgios’ comment ‘Bush league ! Karma is a b——’
Bush league ! Karma is a b——
— Rennae Stubbs
(@rennaestubbs) February 3, 2019
World No.36 John Millman has voiced his support for getting rid of medical breaks all together in order to prevent incidents like this occurring. Taking to social media, the 29-year-old said the current rule is often abused by players on the tour.
“I Was watching the WTA event in Thailand. I’ve used medical timeouts a couple of times before as a necessity, but would be totally for getting rid of them completely. Too many times it’s abused.” Millman wrote on Twitter.
Murray’s solution
Last year, former world No.1 Andy Murray put forward two ideas to tackle the use of tactical timeouts. He spoke about the topic following his US Open match against Fernando Verdasco, who he accused of speaking to his coach during a 10-minute break due to the heat. Under the rules, players are prohibited to do so.
Murray’s first proposal is for the coach of a player to be allowed on the court when the other takes a break. At present, on-court coaching is only allowed on the WTA Tour.
“If a player wants to go to the toilet or have a medical timeout, then his/her opponent is allowed to bring a coach onto the court for the duration of the break. Limiting the advantage gained of disrupting rhythm/momentum. The TV would love this as it would give them something to talk about during the delay.” Murray wrote.
The other idea is for the player who calls for a timeout to forfeit their opponents next service game. The idea being to make the situation more fair to both sides of the court during matches.
“If a player wants to call a medical timeout, they forfeit opponents next service game so when they restart it’s always on their serve. I think players would only get the physio/doctor out if it was a genuine issue in this scenario.” He explained.
Regardless of the controversy surrounding Yastremska, she has risen to 34th in the WTA rankings this week in what is her highest position yet. The teenager now has two WTA titles to her name after also triumphing at the Hong Kong Open last October.