"I am dumbfounded" - Coco Gauff's ex-coach Brad Gilbert furious over "inexcusable" error in Shanghai Masters match ft. Stan Wawrinka, Flavio Cobolli
Coco Gauff ex-coach Brad Gilbert was left fuming after a costly error from chair umpire Carlos Bernardes at the 2024 Shanghai Masters changed the course of Stan Wawrinka’s match against Flavio Cobolli. The veteran called the mistake “inexcusable.”
On Monday, October 7, Wawrinka and Cobolli were in an intense battle for a spot in the Shanghai Masters third round against Novak Djokovic. The pair split the first two sets, with the opening tiebreak going Wawrinka’s way 7-6(6) and Cobolli coming out on top in the next tiebreak 7-6(4).
In the deciding set, Cobolli secured the contest’s solitary break but not without controversy. During Wawrinka’s serve in the second game, the young Italian made a return error, granting the veteran a 15-0 lead. However, chair umpire Bernardes, who simultaneously asked the ground staff to provide electrolytes to Cobolli, forgot to update the scoreboard.
Cobolli won the next point to level the score 15-15, but Bernardes made a critical mistake, updating the scoreboard to 0-30 instead. As it turned out, the Italian player won the game with the wrong score, with neither the players nor the ground officials alerting the chair umpire of the blunder. Cobolli eventually came out on top with the score reading 6-7(6), 7-6(4), 6-3.
Coco Gauff’s ex-coach Brad Gilbert was shocked by the mistake and expressed his frustrations on X.
"How does that basic mistake happen and was not corrected? Did not see the match. If this happened, inexcusable," he wrote.
After Gilbert was provided a video proof showcasing how the situation unfolded, he said:
"I am dumbfounded."
This is not the first time Gilbert lashed out at tournament officials over umpiring errors.
Stan Wawrinka and Flavio Cobolli's Shanghai Masters match isn't the first time Coco Gauff's ex-coach Brad Gilbert has called out umpiring errors
Brad Gilbert, who worked with Coco Gauff until September 2024, rebuked a chair umpire at the Dubai Tennis Championships after he denied Gauff’s persistent requests to call in the tournament supervisor to reassess his contentious call.
"This umpire should not work rest of tournament in my humble opinion," he said.
Gilbert, who frequently advocates incidental replays for umpires to make sound judgments, voiced a similar opinion following Gauff’s tearful argument with a chair umpire over a controversial call at the Paris Olympics:
"I have said since we introduced Hawkeye replay calls like 20 years ago, That we should absolutely have incidental replays, umpires should have a tv monitor to look at replay, same with tournament referee."