"Again with a South American country": Hugo Dellien supports Garin after Davis Cup assault

Former world No. 64 Hugo Dellien expressed his support for fellow Chilean Christian Garin after the "collision" he suffered from Zizou Bergs during their Davis Cup match, which ended with a controversial disqualification for the South American.

Perhaps one of the strangest situations in recent years in Davis Cup was witnessed in the Chile-Belgium qualifiers. Belgium was leading 2-1, and Bergs was attempting to close out the match for the Europeans in a tight contest.

The Belgian secured a break to lead 6-5 in the third set, with the possibility of serving for the win and Belgium’s progression to the next round. In that moment, Bergs ran to celebrate during the change of sides and collided with Garin, who fell to the floor after receiving a hard blow to the eye.

The Chilean remained on the floor for several minutes as Captain Nicolás Massú protested to umpire Carlos Ramos, demanding the disqualification of Bergs. After lengthy discussions, the umpire opted to issue a warning to Bergs and ordered the match to continue.

However, from the bench, Garin refused to play: “You don’t know what it’s like to get hit in the face after playing two and a half hours in this damn match,” Garin told the chair umpire.

“I’m not going to play. You don’t have the guts to disqualify him but you’ll disqualify me. I’ve never had something like this happen. You don’t have the guts. He knocked me out, I fainted.”

The umpire insisted on resuming the match, and as the minutes passed, he imposed penalties on Garin for time violations: first a warning, then a point penalty, and finally a game penalty, giving the victory to Bergs and qualification to Belgium.

The incident went viral on social media, and one of the first to voice his support for Garin was his Bolivian colleague, Hugo Dellien, who also referenced the previous day’s conflict between France and Bolivia and questioned the impartiality of the rules concerning players from their region. “What madness, first with Brazil and now this happens!!! Unintentionally, but it happened, I had to be disqualified… again with a South American country… very strange…” Dellien posted on X.

A day ago, the duel between Arthur Fils and Thiago Seyboth Wild in Davis Cup ended in controversy after an erroneous call by the referee that gave Fils a break and ended with the victory of the Frenchman. The South American had a harsh reaction against Fils in a tense exchange in the net that ended with the referees and captains intervening to separate the players.