Fabio Fognini involuntarily hits a manager of the Portuguese Federation. He was saved from disqualification only because the ball hit the wall first. Then he wins in three sets and will challenge Napolitano (Video)

Fabio Fognini, a former world top 10 player and main favorite at the Oeiras Open 125, miraculously escaped disqualification during his first round match of the tournament, held this afternoon. After losing the first set against the Belgian Joris De Loore 6-4, the thirty-six-year-old Italian forcefully threw a ball towards the presidential stand on the Centralito court in Jamor, hitting the shoulders of one of the vice-presidents of the Federation not directly Portuguese Tennis.

Visibly annoyed by the situation, Vasco Costa, president of the Federation, requested the intervention of the Supervisor to adopt the necessary measures. However, Fognini, after apologizing, was only punished with a warning for unsportsmanlike behavior, because the ball hit the federal manager only after bouncing off the wall, losing much of his energy. If the ball had directly hit anyone in the stands, Fognini would have been automatically disqualified.

Fognini, number one seed in the Oeiras Open 125, finally overcame a difficult first challenge at Centralito, the court where he returned to play after a decade.
The thirty-six-year-old Italian first escaped, as we were saying, disqualification – after almost directly hitting some members of the management of the Portuguese Tennis Federation with a ball – and subsequently managed to impose his game, overturning the result and defeating the Belgian Joris DeLoorenumber 191 in the ATP ranking, with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, in a match that lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes.
In the second round all-Italian derby against Stefano Napolitano who beat Kovalik in two sets.

Marco Rossi