Holger Rune’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou believes tennis should introduce a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in light of doubts over calls made by the chair umpires during last week’s Monte-Carlo Masters.
On Friday (April 12), Rune bore the brunt of a mistake from the umpire during the second-set tiebreaker of his Monte-Carlo quarterfinal loss to Jannik Sinner. The Italian sent a forehand long at 2-3 down, but the line judge failed to call it out.
The Dane subsequently challenged the call, and while the umpire ruled the ball to be in, HawkEye showed the viewers that the ball was out.
Holger Rune, on his part, lost the tiebreaker before winning the match in three sets. However, he would go through a similar experience during his semifinal encounter against Stefanos Tsitsipas the following day.
At 6-4, 3-6, 1-3 down, Tsitsipas hit a double fault while serving at break point down. The ball, however, was called good; Sinner also hesitated to challenge, and HawkEye would later deem the ball to be a few whiskers outside the service box.
Tsitsipas held serve a few moments later and won the next five games to go through to the championship match in Monte-Carlo.
Many fans have since called out the questionable umpiring during the ATP Masters 1000 tournament. Holger Rune’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou is the latest addition to that party and has come up with a suggestion to avoid such controversies.
The Frenchman said in an Instagram reel on Sunday (April 14) that players should be allowed to review an umpire’s call through VAR. He also asserted that a player’s focus is affected in such instances and that they might attribute defeats to unfair treatment, as did Holger Rune following his last-eight exit in Monte-Carlo.
“Today, the players can challenge a call, but they cannot really review an action on video. And that’s missing. It’s called the VAR,” Patrick Mouratoglou said in his Instagram reel. “We have the technology today to avoid big mistakes from the chair umpires.”
“I think the worst for the player is feeling something was unfair to him, that a point was stolen from him,” he added. “Tennis is so difficult mentally to control yourself. You’re fighting against yourself. If there are some big mistakes, players can freak out and it can completely change a match.”
Football (soccer) currently uses a form of VAR, with a team of officials viewing key incidents from a match from numerous angles in a video room in real-time to help the referee make decisions.
“I think supervisor should correct the mistake” – Holger Rune’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou on one of the ‘big issues in tennis umpiring’
Besides the unavailability of VAR, Patrick Mouratoglou also expressed dismay with the lack of action from tournament supervisors after being called on-court in such situations.
“I think there are two big issues in tennis in umpiring. The first one is the absence of using the VAR. And second, when the chair umpire obviously makes a big mistake,” he said. “I think when the supervisor enters, because the player asked for the supervisor on the court, he should correct the mistake.”
Furthermore, Mouratoglou was baffled at umpires making incorrect calls when it came to double bounce, as well. Earlier this week in Monte-Carlo, Sebastian Korda had a point taken away from him during his second-round encounter against Jannik Sinner. This was after the umpire felt the American’s ball was not up while chasing a drop shot.
“They’re humans. Everybody makes mistakes… But I think it’s extremely frustrating for players to see a mistake and not be able to make it be corrected. Even though everything has been filmed. For example, the double bounce,” he added.
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