Rafael Nadal blasted the chair umpire over the state of the court in an ugly moment during the Italian Open final.
The Spanish champion warmed up for the French Open with a 7-5 1-6 6-3 win over Novak Djokovic to claim a record-extending 10th title in Rome on Sunday.
And while Nadal was overjoyed with the triumph after the match, he cut a frustrated and angry figure during it.
Nadal was left fuming after slipping on one of the lines and tumbling to the ground early in the match, angrily gesticulating as he got back to his feet.
He then took his frustrations out on chair umpire Carlos Bernardes after his second tumble this week at the event.
“It’s incredible, the lines,” he shouted.
“They’re going to kill us in the end.”
The 20-time grand slam champion was left with a small cut on his knee from the fall.
“Both on Friday and today I got close to suffer a major injury,” he said in his post-match press conference.
“So I was upset. It’s dangerous.
“It’s plastic lines, so sometimes they can get a bit higher than the clay. In tennis you run fast and it can turn brutal.”
Nadal overcomes mid-match stumble to triumph
After a mid-match wobble, Nadal turned up the heat in the decisive moments of his 57th meeting with top seed Djokovic – the pair’s ninth in Rome – to secure the victory over the defending champion in two hours and 49 minutes.
The win will provide Nadal with a huge boost as he next targets a 14th Roland Garros crown when the clay-court grand slam begins on May 30.
