(Reuters) – Brazil’s Bruno Soares is the latest player to express his frustration towards the officiating at Wimbledon this year after he was warned for racket abuse in a doubles match on Tuesday. Soares received the warning from umpire Marijana Veljovic as he and playing partner Jamie Murray, the third seeds, earned a 6-3 7-6 (3) 4-6 4-6 16-14 victory against 16th seeds Mate Pavic and Michael Venus in the third round. Soares said the warning was unnecessary and that umpires should be realize tempers get frayed during the heat of competition.
“They have got to understand it is competitive, best of five,” the 34-year-old told British media. “Some days, it is very frustrating with rain delays and things like this and we are not robots. We have feelings and it is not easy sometimes. “It’s the first thing I do after three hours and you give me a warning. Why is that? Are we in prison or something?”
On Monday, Pablo Cuevas and partner Marcel Granollers held a sit-down protest after they received warnings for threatening to urinate in a can and blasted a ball out of the court when Cuevas was refused a toilet break. “I think they are taking it to extremes right now,” Soares added.
Soares and Murray face the French pairing of Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Julien Benneteau in the quarter-finals.
(Reporting by Nivedita Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
Reuters
