Alejandro Davidovich Fokina says the decision to default
Andrey Rublev was "very unfair" and called for VAR to be introduced to tennis.
Rublev was disqualified from his semi final clash of the
Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships against Alexander Bublik after screaming in the face of a line judge.
Reacting to the incident on X, Davidovich Fokina sympathized with the Russian, saying: "Very unfair that they disqualify Rublev without first ensuring that what the line judge understood is correct. "That rule should be reviewed and changed. Shameful. We need VAR in tennis."
Rublev will now lose all ranking points and prize money he earned during the event. Rublev was alleged to have called the line judge a "f***ing moron" in Russian after he called a forehand from Rublev out. An official then explained to Rublev that another line judge, who spoke Russian, confirmed to him what had been said and despite his pleas that he spoke in English, the World No. 5 was forced to exit the tournament.
Davidovich Fokina continued in a follow up to his original post: "What he did wasn't right, but taking away all the prize money and points without any proof of what the line judge said to the referee was correct seems unfair."