SAFE HANDS

French Open chair umpire takes abrasive action and catches the ball during a tennis rally

Arnaud Gabas showed his catching skills were as good as his umpiring as he didn’t drop a wayward shot from Greek ace Stefanos Tsitsipas

THIS is the moment the chair umpire Arnaud Gabas got more involved in the action than he had anticipated…when he was forced to CATCH a wayward smash.

It was in the fifth game of the fourth set when No.6 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and Hugo Dellien were involved in a rally on the Simonne-Mathieu Court at the French Open.

 

The Greek went to return a smash from Dellien but his shot was so high and wide that it went straight for the umpire instead.

But as quick as a flash, Gabas caught the ball with his left hand and stop it hitting the spectators behind him.

The crowd applauded the bizarre situation and the umpire just laughed as he awarded the point to Dellien.

Nobody could blame the Frenchman for being more aware of wayward shots on court.

In February 2017, he underwent surgery on a fractured bone under his left eye after being hit in the face.

Canadian Denis Shapovalov accidentally hit Gabas in the eye in anger during a Davis Cup tie against Britain and was immediately defaulted.

Thankfully there was no damage to Gabas’s cornea or retina but the then 17-year-old Shapovalov was fined £5,600 by the ITF for his petulance.

Meanwhile, Tsitsipas’s pen-writing skills clearly need a work, too, because he damaged the camera lenses by accident when he was asked to sign his name like most tennis winners.

AFP or licensors
Stefanos Tsitsipas celebrates after beating Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien

 

AFP or licensors
Stefanos Tsitsipas watches the ball as he serves to Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien

Reuters
Umpire Arnaud Gabas holds an ice pack to his eye after being struck by a ball in 2017

Tsitspias, one of the rising stars in the game of elite tennis, lost the first set to the tricky Bolivian but recovered to win 4-6 6-0 6-3 7-5 in just two hours and 49 minutes.

He will now meet either Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena or Serbian Filip Krajinovic in the third round at Roland Garros.

The 20-year-old famously beat Roger Federer in the Australian Open fourth round in January before losing in the semi-finals to defeated finalist Rafa Nadal.

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