Tennis | Fognini defaulted at Barcelona Open

Fiery Italian Fabio Fognini was defaulted from the Barcelona ATP tournament on Wednesday for verbally abusing a line judge.

The 33-year-old was trailing World No. 147 Bernabe Zapata Miralles 6-0, 4-4 when he clashed with the official and was defaulted by the umpire for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Fognini is one of only a small number of players to have been defaulted from a match.

The most famous incident involved World No. 1 Novak Djokovic who was disqualified from the 2020 US Open for hitting a line judge with a ball.

Nick Kyrgios was also defaulted at the Rome tournament in 2019 after hurling a chair on to the court.

Fognini, the World No. 27, is no stranger to being disqualified.

At the 2017 US Open, he was booted out of the tournament and fined $24,000 for a series of insults aimed at a female chair umpire.

The results:

Second round: Albert Ramos-Vinolas bt Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 6-4; Andrey Rublev bt Federico Gaio 6-4, 6-3; Felix Auger-Aliassime bt Lorenzo Musetti 4-6, 6-3, 6-0; Stefanos Tsitsipas bt Jaume Munar 6-0, 6-2; Alex de Minaur bt Alexander Bublik 7-6(3), 6-2; Pablo Carreno Busta bt Jordan Thompson 6-4, 6-0.