Surreal: a ‘pitero’ crosses the court with a set ball on the Challenger circuit

Sandro Kopp26 years old and world number 293, is a regular tennis player on the circuit Challenger and ITFsecond and third categories of tennis, where players seek points to advance to the tour ATP.

The Austrian reached his round of 16 match in the Liega Challenger (Belgium) with a good streak, with 14 victories in his last 16 games after a great month of June: final in the ITF of VarnamoITF title Klosters and final in the Challenger of Plovdiv.

There he faced the Indian Manas Dhamne18 years old and 386th in the ranking, and both experienced a surreal situation because a ‘pistero’ crossed the court when Kopp was preparing to serve with a set ball to equalize the match and force the third set.

The unprecedented action of the worker stopped the Austrian’s preparation, who could not believe what was happening and, in fact, ended up later losing that point and a total of four set-balls in that 10th fateful game for him (5-5).

Dhamnewho had already saved three set points in the first set before winning it in the tiebreak, achieved victory after also taking the second set in another tiebreak that looked bad for him: Kopp went 2-5 up, but the Indian tennis player linked five consecutive points and qualified for the quarterfinals: 7-6 (4) and 7-6 (5).

The Spanish Miguel Damas He separated Dhamne after the semifinals by winning 6-1 and 7-6 (6). Ladies-Lorenzo Giustino and Kimmer Coppejans-Florian Broska The semi-finals of the ATP Challenger on clay in Liège will be this Saturday.