Former doubles world No. 1 Rennae Stubbs was stunned at chair umpire Adel Nour giving Novak Djokovic a time violation in a French Open match with a historic finish at 3:08 AM.
With the match going over four hours and nearing the 3 AM mark, Djokovic and Musetti were in the fifth set of their grueling French Open third-round match when chair umpire Nour hit the world No. 1 with a time violation. Djokovic didn’t agree with the call – Musetti neither as he wanted the Serb to get his first serve back – but Nour stuck with his initial call.
Novak Djokovic© Getty Images Sport – Dan Istitene
And Stubbs – who served as a coach/advisor for Serena Williams during the American’s farewell at the 2022 US Open – couldn’t believe what Nour was doing.
“Time violation at 3am after that epic a point is soooooo ridiculous. Come on umpire!” Stubbs wrote on X.
Time violation at 3am after that epic a point is soooooo ridiculous. Come on umpire!
— Rennae Stubbs ♈️ (@rennaestubbs) June 2, 2024
Stubbs applauds Djokovic for his win over Musetti
After four hours and 29 minutes, Djokovic completed a very hard-fought 7-5 6-7 (6) 2-6 6-3 6-0 win over Musetti.
“Incredible effort from @DjokerNole to get the win at 37 years of age, 3am in the morning down 2 sets to 1. You just wonder how much this will take out of him physically. Incredible oh and he looked better in the 5th than he had for a while. Unreal,” Stubbs wrote.
Incredible effort from @DjokerNole to get the win at 37 years of age, 3am in the morning down 2 sets to 1. You just wonder how much this will take out of him physically. Incredible oh and he looked better in the 5th than he had for a while. Unreal.
— Rennae Stubbs ♈️ (@rennaestubbs) June 2, 2024
After the match, defending French Open champion Djokovic very candidly admitted that he was “in real trouble” and gave the credit to the crowd for giving him a spark of energy when he needed it.
“Well, I was in real trouble. Credit to Lorenzo for making me uncomfortable on court and playing some really amazing tennis, really high level,” Djokovic said after the match.
At one point, I didn’t know what to do. From both ends, he was getting a lot of balls back, winners from both corners, good servers, running every ball down the court. It didn’t feel great playing him in that third set and the beginning of the fourth.”
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