Tennis: Angry Wozniacki demands changes after French flop

Caroline Wozniacki. AP FILE PHOTO

PARIS – Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki made an angry exit from the French Open on Saturday and demanded Roland Garros adopt line judging technology in common with the three other Grand Slams.

Wozniacki slumped to a 6-1, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3 loss to Estonian 23rd seed Kaia Kanepi in a stormy third round clash which ended in fading light.

The Dane argued with chair umpire Poncho Ayala at 1-1 in the second set after a ball she believed was long by a considerable margin had not been called out by the linesman.

“You’d be friggin wrong if we had Hawk Eye….I want to see the supervisor,” raged Wozniacki at the umpire before she quickly lost four games on the trot.

After the match, the ninth seed demanded a review by the French authorities over officiating.

“When the ball is clearly out, I don’t think there should be anything to argue about. You know, if they cannot see, they should have other umpires on the lines or invent Hawk Eye on these courts,” she said.

“It’s a disgrace that mistakes like this are made. It wasn’t even like, you know, could have been in, could have been out. It was clearly out.”

Wozniacki, who has yet to get beyond the quarter-finals in Paris, managed to compose herself in the second set, saving two match points before levelling the match in the tiebreaker.

Kanepi, who made the quarter-finals in 2008, went on to squander two more match points in the decider before eventually wrapping up victory.

She will tackle Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus who put out German 25th seed Julia Goerges 7-6 (7/5), 2-6, 6-2 in another third round tie which finished in the gloom at 9:30 pm (1930 GMT).

Rus, ranked 88 in the world, had knocked out Kim Clijsters in the second round last year.

On Saturday, she maintained her composure to win on a third match point despite her coaching team complaining over what they believed was Goerges’s attempts to have the match halted for darkness when she was trailing 4-1.

The German called for the trainer to have treatment on her left foot, but the match continued and Rus went through to the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time.

“I think for me it was okay, but, yeah, at the end it went darker and darker. But for me it was okay to play,” said the 21-year-old, who hadn’t got beyond the second round of any tournament this year before heading for Paris.