How to win a tennis match without touching the ball

Fabio Fognini had a meltdown for the ages in Cincinnati.

By Chris Chase

Radek Stepanek faced off against Fabio Fognini in a first-round match at the Western & Southern Open and won the final game of the match without having to touch the ball, thanks to his fiery Italian opponent’s inability to land a serve, hit a serve without stepping over the line or react to his inability to hit a serve by angrily hitting a ball high into the stands.

Watch as Fognini hits two double faults, gets a code violation for ball abuse, which brought upon a point penalty since it was his second of the match, engages in an argument with the chair umpire for said point penalty and, in his grand finale, commits two consecutive foot faults on triple match point. The only thing he didn’t do was threaten to stuff a ball down the throat of the linesperson who called the foot fault.

Games like this often occur (well, not like this — but similar style meltdowns), but usually when the match is out of hand. Fognini had dropped the first set, yes, but he was on serve in the second and could have easily taken that set to force a decisive third. But, hey, sometimes you just have to hit a ball into an empty upper deck to make your point.