Tennis commentator Mark Petchey has drew the ire of some tennis fans who have reacted angrily after he remarked that the
Andrey Rublev line judge drama brought attention to the
Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships that wouldn't have been there.
Rublev was trailing 6-5 in the third set against
Alexander Bublik when he decided to scream in the face of a line judge in Russian which was then reported and he was swiftly defaulted by umpire, Miriam Bley. Players have rallied behind Rublev and called the situation a farce, but Petchey sees it from a commercial angle.
"For all those that want all electronic line calling just remember that undiluted passion and drama writes headlines. There are news channels all over the world talking about Dubai that wouldn’t be today, if we had all electronic line calling. Nobody died also," Petchey wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
But those in his replies didn't take the same tact, one wrote. "Okay cool. So at Acapulco, Casper Ruud should kick a ballboy in the shins to get some publicity for this underreported sport. As long as the ballboy doesn't die. Am I doing this right?"
"No I don't agree with this. Tennis shouldn't want to gain publicity from such negative headlines. There are more than enough interesting stories that can gain interest."
"All for publicity. It's best if they play completely naked. In the mud, with music. The newspapers would explode," another wrote. "Oh so maybe tennis events should generate fights between players and more drama just for attention to?" said a further remark. Safe to say that Petchey's viewpoint didn't go down too well.