Dominika Cibulkova speaks to a match official after a line call during the women's singles match against Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan on the seventh day at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Photo / AP
Dominika Cibulkova speaks to a match official after a line call during the women's singles match against Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan on the seventh day at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Photo / AP
Dominika Cibulkova launched a scathing attack on Wimbledon's officials after a line call controversy marred her 6-4 6-1 rout of Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei on Monday.
Cibulkova was furious when Hsieh successfully persuaded the umpire to replay a point that was initially called in the Slovakian's favour and would have given her three set points in the opening set.
Hsieh's protests to the umpire prompted the match referee to come on court to intervene as the argument lasted eight minutes before the point was finally replayed, much to Cibulkova's disgust.
The 29-year-old channelled her anger to secure a fourth round win over Hsieh — who had shocked world number one Simona Halep in the previous round.
"It was ridiculous what happened there. It never happened to me in my career," Cibulkova fumed.
"Sometimes I'm also complaining because I think it was a wrong call. But it never happened to me that the umpire changed the decision.
"It was really ridiculous for me. I think it was a really bad decision from the supervisor and from the umpire.
"They changed their mind. The umpire told me she don't remember what happened after the ball. Is it my fault you don't remember if she hit the net or if she put it on my side?
"It doesn't matter. The call was after when she played the ball. She made a decision.
"After she was complaining, they were talking in Chinese, whatever language.
"It really messed with me, then I tried to just calm down, to play my game."
Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan speaks to a match official after a line call during the women's singles match against Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia. Photo / AP
Asked if she had any sympathy for Hsieh at the time, as replays suggested the Taiwan player did deserve to have the point replayed, Cibulkova said: "No. This happened to me so many times.
"I had exact the same point, and the point was given to the other player. "I had no sympathy because it's just about the chair umpire. "I'm a fair player. When I feel like this is something that should not happen, I would maybe have sympathy with her."
Cibulkova's tantrum on the court and classless responses after her match left her with few friends at the end of the day's play.
Honestly, it would have taken seconds for the Hawk-Eye team to inform the umpire that Hsieh's shot had landed in but they are not allowed to. As a result, play stopped for eight minutes. Crowd were chanting "replay the point".
Hsieh, meanwhile, insisted she was right to demand the call be over-turned.
"For me it's really normal. You always have some argument or something happen on the court," she said.
"It's Love-40 and I was not winning my serve, so I was, like, Oh, my God, I need to go there and try to talk to the chair umpire and try to ask her to ask the referee to come.
"I hope they're gonna give me this point to give me a chance to do a replay. Finally they did, so I was very happy."
Given the opportunity to criticise Cibulkova for protesting about the replay, Hsieh took the high road.
"No, I understand. You know, she's a fighter. I understand she want to win. Maybe she's tired and she don't see the ball," she said.
Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia adjusts her hair during the women's singles match against on the seventh day at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London. Photo / AP
"This is not the first time this can happen, because sometimes you have two bounce and the chair umpire they don't see it.
"It's quite common, because even player on the court sometimes get tired and don't see something, it's normal."
Cibulkova faces Latvian 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko, a former French Open champion, for a place in the semi-finals.
Ostapenko was given a code violation for receiving coaching while beating Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 7-6 (4), 6-0.
Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia returns to Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan during their women's singles match on the seventh day at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London. Photo / AP
The warning came with Ostapenko two breaks of serve down at 2-5 and on the verge of losing her first set at these championships. The Latvian insisted nobody from her box said anything.
"That code violation made me even more motivated and angry," Ostapenko said.
"So I just started to play better." Ostapenko lost only one more game as she progressed to a second consecutive Wimbledon quarterfinal.
"You never know what to expect from her (Ostapenko)," Cibulkova said.
"In this tournament, she seems to be in the right mood."
