Berdych's U.S. Open loss to Cilic hinged on controversial double bounce
Tomas Berdych was certain — absolutely certain — he managed to get his racket on the ball before it bounced twice.
Or at least he carried on as if were sure of it.
Ever so briefly making a bit of a comeback after dropping the first two sets of his U.S. Open quarterfinal against Marin Cilic, the sixth-seeded Berdych was serving at 4-2, 30-15 in the third when the point in question arrived.
At the end of a 12-stroke exchange, Cilic hit a shot that clipped the net cord and bounced onto Berdych's side. Berdych raced forward, lifted the ball back over, and Cilic's put his reply into the net.
Berdych thought he won the point. But chair umpire Louise Azemar Engzell awarded it to Cilic.
"What are you talking about?" Berdych began.
He walked over to Engzell's stand and leaned on it, putting his head down, before resuming his argument.
"Have you ever had a racket in your hand?" he asked. "This is a horrible call. This is (an) absolutely horrible call. There is absolutely no explanation."
Engzell told Berdych that she saw the ball bounce twice before he hit it.
"If it bounced twice," he responded, "it is impossible to hit a shot like that."
But a slow-motion replay showed that ball did, in fact, bounce a fraction of a second before the lunging Berdych made contact.
Berdych lost the next two points to get broken, then harangued Engzell some more at the ensuing changeover, cursing during his rant. He wound up losing that set, sending Cilic to the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory.
Thanks to FTW for sharing the videos.
