A "not up" call by chair umpire Adel Nour during Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev's ATP Finals semi has caused frustration and a call for change following a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review.
In the opening point of set two, Fritz hit a drop shot as Zverev scrambled to get his racquet onto the ball, with replays showing he had done so despite the umpire's "not up" decision.
After a three-minute VAR review, the call was overturned and the pair were forced to replay the point.
The lengthy delay drew whistles from the Italian crowd as Zverev's impatience wore thin, sitting on the advertising boards until being heard saying "Let's go" when the big screen clearly showed there was one bounce.
Courtside commentator for Sky Sports, Tim Henman, was left unimpressed by how long it took for the umpire to make a definitive decision.
"It’s interesting with the video replay, [it] fundamentally changed the decision. You would say it’s a good thing, but I think we need to speed it up a little bit. Took quite a long time to make a decision," he said.
But the ruling had Fritz asking questions, seemingly asking Nour why the point cannot be played out in its entirety before relying on the VAR.
"Why don't we just play the point to conclusion and then review a close call afterwards? Because Fritz had a sitter on top of the net, he would've won the point without the call," said one of the match commentators.
It was the first time the review system had been used in the singles of this week's event.
In 2018, the Next Gen Finals debuted the new system for trial until the 2020 Nitto ATP Finals began to use the technology for non-line calls.
The US Open is the only Grand Slam that has adopted the VAR system.
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