Quote from: Silberman on Today at 06:57:55 PM

Quote from: JollyGood on September 08, 2020, 01:11:22 PM

I can understand why you disagree but the fact he unintentionally hit the line judge is not a valid argument. The fact remains he hit the ball behind him without looking where the ball was going and he had no reason whatsoever to do it and that is reckless behaviour according to the rules. If a player had done the same thing while in the middle of a rally while trying to get the ball back over the net to their opponent then it would have been never have resulted in him being disqualified.

The Grand Slam rules state: "Players shall not at any time physically abuse any official, opponent, spectator or other person within the precincts of the tournament site. The referee, in consultation with the Grand Slam chief of supervisors may declare a default for either a single violation of this code."

And the rulebook states players shall not hit the ball: "....dangerously or recklessly within the court, or with negligent disregard of the consequences"

As a result of this incident Djokovic has also been fined $10,000, he will also have to forfeit his $250,000 earnings in the US Open and he will also lose his ranking points earned in the tournament.

Thanks for the explanation, if we just take a look at the actions of Djokovic without any context of the rules the disqualification could excessive for anyone not acquainted with them, but after reading the text then it is obvious why he was disqualified, it is a shame this happened but he has no one else to blame but himself for this incident, but on the long term it should be not be too big of a deal, I think he already apologized, as he should, for this incident and all of this will just be a bad memory for him with no long term repercussions.

Those are the words from the actual rulebook so to be fair Djokovic had to be disqualified for the integrity of the rules to be upheld.

Quote from: PhoNam on Today at 07:10:42 PM

Doesn't seem that way to me.

John McEnroe stated that this will stay with him for the rest of his career. The Bad Guy Djokovic. on CNN Sport.

They tried to compare a video from Federer few years back hitting the ball boy but it's definitely not the same.

Djok just have to shake it off and be careful on saying things on social media now to keep his fan base loyal.

I agree with McEnroe, this will affect Djokovic especially if he fails to win another Grand Slam, he is 33 years old after all and he will probably never catch Nadal who is in #2 in overall Grand Slam wins and Djokovic will probably be unable to catch Federer who is #1 on all time Grand Slam wins. If that remains then it will haunt Djokovic because both Nadal and Federer were his biggest obstacles in the US Open this year but both decided to not participate.

Federer hit the ball to the ball boy in order for him to catch it but the net post was obscuring the view the ball boy and the ball hit his shoulder. If the kid was actually looking at the where Federer was hitting the ball then he would have caught it but he looked away after Federer hits it. Seems to me the net post blocking his eye line is the only explanation why he was hit but Federer did nothing against the rules hence why he was not fined or disqualified.