What are the most bizarre incidents that you have come across in the tennis world? Well, there would hardly be an eye-catching one like the incident that occurred with Mats Rosenkranz today. The 26-year-old German star is currently playing in an ATP Challenger event in Hersonissos, Greece. He was up against Pietro Orlando Fellin in the second-round clash earlier today. Although Rosenkranz started the match on the front foot, he was caught up in an unfortunate incident mid-match.

Rosenkranz began dominating the match right from the word go and stamped his authority on the encounter against Fellin. Subsequently, he went on to win the opening set 7-5 and looked poised to progress through to the next round. However, a shocking incident unfolded, which turned the tables against Rosenkranz.

Amid a hot and humid day, the German ATP star decided to cool himself down by taking a quick shower break. Although he returned to the court in no time, to his disbelief, the chair umpire ruled that it wasn’t legal, and Mats Rosenkranz had to forfeit his match despite being set up. Subsequently, he had a lengthy discussion with the umpire, but to no avail. Soon after the match, he was reported to have said, “‘I only took a 10-sec shower’ and wasn’t told by the umpire that it was forbidden.”

With doping incidents frequently happening during such breaks, the ATP decided to ban showers in the middle of matches. This wasn’t known to Mats Rosenkranz, and he had to give up his match despite being in the front.

However, he isn’t the first player to fall prey to ejection in the middle of the match this year. Back in April, one of the most bizarre incidents stunned the tennis world as ATP star Svyatoslav Gulin was ejected from the match midway.

Beyond ATP… What happened with Svyatoslav Gulin?

Gulin was up against Alejo Sanchez Quilez in an ITF match earlier this year. Interestingly, he was leading 4-0 in the final set when an eye-catching incident shocked the tennis world. Despite winning a point and being comfortably ahead, Gulin threw some obscene gestures towards the chair umpire. Additionally, he also used abusive and vulgar language, which left the umpire and the fans in the stadium stunned.

The chair umpire took no time and defaulted Gulin from the match under ITF’s strict rules about the players’ behavior during the matches. It handed his opponent a victory from the jaws of defeat, and Gulin had to pay the price of his abusive behavior against the chair umpire. Meanwhile, it was unclear why Gulin began abusing the chair umpire, especially after things were going his way.

Further, a few years back, Nicolas Moreno de Alboran was also ejected from the match after taking a shower. Like Mats Rosenkranz, he wasn’t aware of the ATP’s bizarre rule and had to pay the price during his match against Federico Delbonis. Incidents like these throw the sport in a bad light, and the tennis bodies have to review such rules, especially when the players aren’t much at fault in this.