What a pathetic mess the Queen's Club officials made of the end of their tournament this afternoon.
A hard fought match between David Nalbandian and Marin Cilic was brought to an abrupt halt when Nalbandian threw a wobbly and kicked a bit of advertising hoarding; unfortunately for him, a line judge was placed immediately behind it and received a nasty cut to his shin as a result. Under ATP rules, such an incident requires disqualification of the offender and this penalty was imposed; Cilic consequently won the trophy.
However, what happened after the incident was a typical English mess. It took ages for anyone to do anything and, more particularly, no one bothered to tell the increasingly annoyed crowd what was going on. These people had no doubt paid substantial sums to watch a tennis match and were rewarded with a balls-up.
When an official did, finally, take hold of a microphone he was first booed loudly by the audience and then failed miserably to say anything meaningful. No explanation was offered, nor any apology; the man simply had no idea of how he should have behaved towards the people who were, after all, contributing to his wages. It was, frankly, a disgrace, but typical of the mentality of the 'old school tie' brigade who dominate so much of British society. It was also an embarrassment to anyone who is British.
Please God nothing similar happens at Wimbledon.
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