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Ben Shelton sealed the win against Denis Shapovalov in truly bizarre circumstances with the Canadian defaulted on match point and now loses all of his ranking points and prize money.
Shapovalov let the emotions get the better of him as his hopes of reaching the semi-final started to slip away. Shapovalov took his frustrations out both on his racquet and a member of the crowd. The umpire as a result felt they had no choice but to default him entirely from the tournament in a harsh stance to the situation.
The Canadian was three match points down and decided to start shouting obscenities at a member of the crowd. He also threw his racquet a few times. The supervisor came out and defaulted him from the tie.
This also puzzled Ben Shelton who seemed to argue in favour of Shapovalov with both players being out there for over two hours battling to a tie-break conclusion. But bizarrely he clapped the crowd and had a handshake after not hitting the match point.
Shapovalov launched into another tirade as he left the court shouting at the supervisor and seemingly swearing towards him saying that he worked so hard. It has been a tough time on the court for the Canadian and when it seems like there is light at the end of the tunnel, that has been slammed shut.
Albeit mostly of his own doing but an unfortunate end to a great week. Whether he appeals remains to be seen but unlike Andrey Rublev who did it earlier in the season to a line judge, it is very much black and white in terms of what he said.
Shelton now moves on to face Flavio Cobolli in the semi-finals and looks all set to move towards another career final in odd circumstances in this case.
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Shapovalov gets defaulted as Shelton has 3 match points in Washington He was defaulted for saying something to someone in the crowd who was bothering him as well as racquet throwing He loses all prize money & points from the week Not sure thats fair..