The tennis world has probably never seen anything like it. At the ATP tournament in Houston, Steven Diez (ATP 292) is already celebrating his two-set win in qualifying. He wins 6-4, 6-4. The referee Adel Borghei confirms this with the obligatory “Game, Set and Match – Diez”. But then the referee changed his mind. The game continues, the supposedly inferior Gijs Brouwer (ATP 361) still leaves the field 6: 4, 5: 7, 2: 6 as the winner.
How might that happen? On Instagram, the 31-year-old says: “After I celebrated and wanted to shake my opponent’s hand, the referee decided to check the mark when the game was clearly over and it was far too late to mark the ball.” That was the referee’s first big mistake. Diez: “The second mistake was that he marked a ball that was literally a meter from the real mark.” Then the referee asked the linesman for his opinion, who supported him. “He still stuck to his opinion.”
Diez is stunned and no longer understands the world. World number 292 has no explanation for what happened. Especially since the video images of the scene suggest that Diez is correct in his criticism. He says: “Something happened to me today that is difficult to put into words.” After all, the story still has a happy ending – at least a little bit. The 31-year-old moved up into the main draw as a lucky loser. In this he lost, but perhaps the move up provided a little satisfaction.
