"Seven times! Always against me!" shouted an exasperated Nicolas Tourte before, match-point down, firing his final two serves, quite deliberately, into the trees behind Louk Sorensen.
Sorensen's celebration was, understandably, muted, but he accepted Tourte's handshake at the net and departed. The French man stood shaking his head for a moment, before he too bid adieu.
It wasn't quite the climax Sorensen might have wished for to his defeat of Tourte, 6-3, 7-6, in the opening round of the Shelbourne Irish Open yesterday, having produced a marvellous display against the sixth seed.
But Tourte, exasperated by what he saw as biased umpiring - the umpire, it should be noted, was Venezuelan - had had enough by the time Sorensen made it 6-1 with an ace in the second set tie-breaker, a serve he claimed was out.
He smashed his racket against the net, damaging one of the supports, and an attempt by the tournament referee to calm him had little effect. And so he deposited the tennis balls in the Fitzwilliam trees.
The victory had, though, been all but sealed by the Stuttgart-based Sorensen by then, the accuracy of his groundstrokes and the sheer power of his serve frustrating Tourte from the off. Once he broke Tourte in the sixth game of the first set Sorensen's grip on the tie never loosened.
"Breaking him gave me a lot of confidence," he said, "after that I served and volleyed very well".
Neither man could break the other in the second set, but again Sorensen took the initiative in the tie-breaker, Tourte's dejection levels soaring as the match drifted from him.
Sorensen's second-round opponent will be 21-year-old American Brendan Evans, once the third ranked junior in the world, who was given a $1 million contract by Nike when he was 16.
Evans saw off the challenge of Ireland's John McGahon earlier in the day, 6-3, 6-2, but the Dundalk man put up a commendable show against a man ranked 900 places above him.
Both players had their rhythm disrupted by the conditions, playing through a series of showers until a downpour forced them off. When they returned, Evans, 4-2 up in the second, wrapped up the match by taking the next two games.
Another Irish player in action yesterday, James Clusky, also exited, losing in straight sets to Ti Chen from Chinese Taipei.
Defending champion Mischa Zverev was made to toil for his passage to the second round, needing two tie-breakers to get past Latvia's Andis Juska. Three Irish players, Conor Niland, James McGee and Peter Clarke, play their first-round ties against Gary Lugassy (eighth seed), Alun Jones (third seed) and Igor Sijsling respectively today.
