The French Open 2024 has come under the scanner for multiple reasons. While the late-night finishes remain a concern, yet another controversy has popped up during the recent Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Carlos Alcaraz game.
As Tsitsipas approached the chair umpire to complain about Alcaraz’s grunt, a technology innovation took over. Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray, like many, seems to have his issues with it.
During the quarter-final match against Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas found himself distracted by the Spaniard multiple times. Every time Tsitsipas was about to serve, Alcaraz made a grunting noise.
The Greek player’s complaint was that had it been during Alcaraz’s shots, he wouldn’t mind. However, since the World No.3 was grunting when Tsitsipas was playing a shot, that’s where the problem was.
After the second set tie-break, the reigning Monte Carlo Masters champion was heard saying to the chair umpire –
Now, while the complaint was being resolved, a picture of him was captured in a weird angle that went viral. The new ‘Umpire-Head-Camera’ was responsible for this. Introduced during the French Open 2024, this is a head cam on top of the umpires to give them a close-up swivel view.
This technology provides a better view of the vicious spin of the yellow tennis ball atop red clay. It also supposedly gives a better understanding of the extreme speed at which the ball travels, something that wasn’t quite evident in the TV cameras previously. However, the angle at which it captures the image makes it all a bit silly.
This is where Andy Murray chimed in on X and tweeted the following –
