We’ve seen plenty of wild tennis meltdowns throughout the years: from John McEnroe to Nick Kyrgios.
But we’ve never seen one quite like Botic van de Zandschulp when he played French fan favourite and former world number six Gale Monfils in Doha overnight.
The 28-year-old Dutchman was once ranked as high as 22nd in the world, but is now 70th.
After losing the first set to Monfils 6-1 in just 26 minutes, van de Zandschulp looked set to seal the second set – before unravelling in spectacular fashion.
He had a set point while serving at 5-3 and up advantage. He failed to convert and was broken by the 37-year-old veteran.
Stream Over 50 Sports Live & On-Demand with Kayo. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >
As Monfils served the next game, his opponent had another two set points – first at 30-40 then at 40-Ad. But Monfils saved both of those.
Then, with Monfils serving at 5-6 – once again trying to stay in the set – Van de Zandschulp took a 0-40 lead and had another three set points. But Monfils played some stunning tennis to save all three set points, making it six set points he had saved in total.
So frustrated was the Dutch star that he smashed his racquet and received a code violation, before Monfils saw out the game and sent it to a tie-break.
Monfils soon roared to a 6-3 lead with three match points. But there was another twist in the tale as van de Zandschulp saved all three and brought up a seventh set point of his own.
He lost it, but soon had another set point at 8-7 – only for Van de Zandschulp to throw it away with a woefully missed forehand.
Van de Zandschulp brought up another set point – his ninth of the set – when he nailed his next serve to lead 9-8.
But despite winning that point, he was clearly so frustrated at the forehand unforced error on the previous point that he launched a ball into the stands.
That saw him receive another code violation – and having already received a warning for his racquet smash earlier in the set, it meant he copped a point penalty.
“This is unbelievable. As if we haven’t seen it all during this breaker,” one commentator said.
Another replied: “I can’t believe that. I cannot believe that! He’d won the point!”
That meant his ninth set point was wiped out with Monfils given a point to level it at 9-9, before Monfils sealed the match 11-9 in the breaker – thanks to a very lucky deflection off the net cord.
It was one of the craziest finishes to a match in recent memory, with Monfils saving nine set points and needing four match points – and a penalty or two – to win.
Sabalenka loses for first time since AO | 00:52
“To be honest, he played good. I lost a little bit of focus. Then I bring back the energy, you guys pushed me,” Monfils told the crowd.
“It was a real battle. At the end, I was a bit fortunate. But you know, I’ll take it.”
Speaking of the tie-break mayhem in his press conference, he said: “He started to get angry, but the fact that I sensed he was nervous made me tense. In the end, I came out of it with a lot of luck and success.”
Discussion about this post