French Open Player's Fight with Chair Umpire Ends in Twitter Picture

Tennis players can now add smartphones to the list of their sport's recommended gear. 

Annie Colbert of Mashable happened upon a peculiar tweet sent out by a French Open player who was supposed to be engaged in an early round match with Richard Gasquet. It seems Sergiy Stakhovsky was so incensed by a call from the chair umpire that he decided to grab his iPhone and send a picture off to his Twitter followers. 

There is no going back now. 

The Daily Mail has a full report of the moment when social media caused a delay at the French Open. It came during the first set of Stakhovsky's eventual loss to Gasquet, 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. 

The Ukrainian tennis player—who is ranked 101st in the world—hit a shot he believed was in, but it was ruled out. He then argued with chair umpire Carlos Ramos before grabbing his iPhone to show the world the mark of his frustration. 

Stakhovsky talks about his anger as well as the expectation that he will be fined by officials, via the Daily Mail: 

"

I'm now expecting a fine, actually, so I'm going to go and fight...I believe it was a bad call, it was a bad judgment. After all, we are playing on clay, where you should be clearly able to read the mark, and unfortunately, not all of our referees are able to do so.

"

"It was just spontaneous," Stakhovsky continued. "It's never thought through...When you see it, you get frustrated, because you saw the ball is nowhere being out and the frustrations comes in."

Gasquet didn't mind the theatrics unfolding during his eventual win. "It's funny. It's not a problem," Gasquet remarked. "He's a funny guy. I think he's one of the funniest guys in the draw. For sure, it's not usual to see that, but I can understand he's frustrated."

The report also reminds us that tennis disputes have been fairly audacious recently. Serbian player Viktor Troicki recently squired a TV cameraman onto the court to show fans at home a similar mark. 

All of this has to make you think what John McEnroe might do if he were in his prime amid the ubiquity that iPhones and social media sites like Twitter represent. 

While I hardly think tennis stars will resort to tweeting every last dispute, we have to assume that this will not be the last instance of an athlete using social media to air out frustration. 

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