Why a tennis player was disqualified for walking off court mid-match – and why he apologized

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.

This week, there was one of the strangest disqualifications in tennis history, the race to the ATP Tour Finals intensified and a player at the center of a storm broke new ground.

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Why was a clay court the scene of the strangest default in recent times?

When a player is disqualified from a tennis match, they usually spend some time in discussion with officials before they go. When Daniil Medvedev was defaulted from his China Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic this month for striking a fan in the face with a ball, he tried to plead his case; Djokovic did the same when he was defaulted from the 2020 U.S. Open for striking a line judge in the throat, also with a ball.

But on Friday at the Guayaquil Challenger in Ecuador, Argentina’s Camilo Ugo Carabelli effectively disqualified himself by walking off court during his match against Brazil’s João Lucas Reis da Silva.

After losing his serve to make it 5-5 in the first set, Carabelli dropped a couple of balls onto the clay, went to his bag and walked off the court while gesticulating toward the chair umpire. As the world No. 75 walked away, the umpire tried to ask Carabelli to change his mind, telling him “come here” in Spanish, but his efforts were in vain.

Carabelli did not return to the court, meaning that the win was awarded to Reis da Silva.

The Argentine refused to play on because of the conditions of the courts, which had been left sodden by persistent storms in Guayaquil. Flooding has been reported in the port city, and the tournament’s final was suspended on Sunday due to rain. On the point before he walked off, Carabelli lost his footing while trying to change direction.

NO RECUERDO ALGO SIMILAR 🚨🚨🚨

Camilo Ugo Carabelli SE RETIRÓ de su partido ante Reis Da Silva por el pésimo estado de las canchas en Guayaquil. Literalmente se fue.

¿Lo curioso? El brasileño festejó el triunfo.

Imágenes increíbles. pic.twitter.com/16zArviZYY

— Gonzalo Ferreyra (@gonzaloferreyr) October 31, 2026

In a statement issued the following day, Carabelli apologized for his actions, saying that he had not intended to effectively self-default.

“I wanted to continue playing and competing, but I truly felt that doing so in those conditions was a risk,” he wrote in Spanish.

“In the moment, I did not fully grasp what was happening nor what the consequences could be (for walking off court). Nor did I listen to what the umpire was warning me about.”

Carabelli also expressed regret for how he behaved toward the tournament’s staff, saying he appreciated their efforts to make the courts playable in such challenging conditions.

— James Hansen

How did a player overcome a persistent problem to break new ground?

On Sunday in Guangzhou, China, Harriet Dart thought it was happening again.

After hitting a double fault to lose her serve against Austria’s Lilli Tagger, the British player appeared to break down in tears, covering her face with her hand. Dart, who has had persistent problems with her serve in recent years, was leading Tagger 2-1 in the third set of the Guangzhou Open final when she gave up a break and let Tagger, 18, level the decider at 2-2.

Despite the 12-year age gap, Tagger had the edge in final experience. She won the Prague Open in July, her first tour title. Dart had yet to get over that hurdle in singles.

But the 30-year-old shook off the double fault, and five games later she had the first tour trophy of her career in her hands, thanks to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 comeback win.

“I’ll try not to get too emotional. A big thank you to my team this week. It’s ­amazing to play in front of such a big crowd. It’s been so much fun here and I really appreciate it and hope to be back next year,” she said during her on-court interview.

“This week shows that even when I’m down — and people think I’m down and out — I’m still able to overcome it. Today was a really tough match. I have no doubt Lilli will go on and win multiple titles. To come through a week like this means a lot.”

Dart came through qualifying to win the tournament. She was down a set in her first qualifying match, and then defeated three seeds on her way to lifting the title. The win is also consequential in a wider sense — it will give her direct entry into the main draw at January’s Australian Open.

— James Hansen

Why was last week crucial for the ATP Tour Finals?

The end of another long tennis season is nigh, meaning emotions are frayed, bodies are breaking down, and energy — as well as good decision-making — is lacking.

Add that general end-of-year weariness to a tighter-than-usual race to qualify for the ATP Tour Finals, and what comes out on the other side is sweet, silly mayhem.

On Thursday, across four matches at the ATP 500 Vienna Open and Basel Open, there were tears from an overwhelmed Flavio Cobolli and missed opportunities from Rafael Jódar. Novak Djokovic lost to a 36-year-old journeyman for the first time in his career and Daniil Medvedev decided to punch a tennis court.

Start with the most consequential result of the day for everything that isn’t Medvedev’s right fist: Djokovic lost in Basel, 6-7(4), 7-5, 7-6(5) to a redlining Jan-Lennard Struff in a second-round match that had major implications for Djokovic’s chances to qualify for a record-equalling 17th ATP Tour Finals appearance. Still, the 39-year-old gave his opponent a little help, double-faulting three times before getting broken in the second set.

The top nine players in the rankings will compete at the year-end championships in Turin, Italy because No. 2 Jannik Sinner is finished with his season.

New world No. 1 Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Ben Shelton and Medvedev have qualified. Cobolli, Arthur Fils, Frances Tiafoe, Jódar, Alex de Minaur, Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul remain in the hunt, though the players behind de Minaur would need deep runs, or a title, to have a chance of qualification.

Djokovic sat in 11th place at the start of his match Thursday, holding a big opportunity because Jódar, the 20-year-old from Spain, had lost to eventual champion Valentin Vacherot in Basel earlier in the day. His rollercoaster 7-6(4), 2-6, 7-6(5) loss to Vacherot was its own study in missed opportunities, none worse than the two botched points on his serve at the end of the third-set tiebreak.

Jódar lost having won just three of 11 break points and has work to do in Paris to defend his position. A dominant performance from Alcaraz in the Vienna Open final Sunday helped, with the Spaniard dispatching de Minaur 6-1, 6-4 and preventing the Australian from pulling ahead of Jódar in the race. If Jódar matches de Minaur’s result in the French capital — and other players don’t go deep — he will qualify for the ATP Tour Finals in the same year that he first broke the top 100 in the rankings.

Cobolli, who sobbed in his seat before retiring from his match against childhood friend Matteo Berrettini at the Vienna Open, is ready to play in Paris despite the scare.

— Ava Wallace

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 ATP: 

🏆 Carlos Alcaraz (2) def. Alex de Minaur (5) 6-1, 6-4 to win the Vienna Open (500) in Vienna. It is his 28th career title.

🏆 Valentin Vacherot def. Jiří Lehečka (8) 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 to win the Swiss Indoors Basel (500) in Basel, Switzerland. It is his second ATP Tour title.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Diana Shnaider (3) def. Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 to win the Pan Pacific Open (500) in Tokyo. It is her sixth WTA Tour title.

🏆 Harriet Dart (Q) def. Lilli Tagger (4) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 to win the Guangzhou Open (250) in Guangzhou, China. It is her first WTA Tour title.

📈📉 On the rise / Down the line

📈 Alexander Zverev moves up one place from No. 2 to No. 1, making his debut at the top of the men’s singles rankings.

📈 Kamilla Rakhimova ascends 22 spots from No. 44 to No. 66.

📈 Térence Atmane moves up 17 places from No. 90 to No. 73.

📈 Harriet Dart rises 31 spots from No. 115 to No. 84.

📉 Félix Auger-Aliassime leaves the top 10, falling six places from No. 7 to No. 13.

📉 Amanda Anisimova leaves the top 20, dropping five places from No. 17 to No. 22.

📉 Lorenzo Sonego leaves the top 100, tumbling 15 spots from No. 91 to No. 106.

📉 Anna Blinkova also leaves the top 100, moving down 32 spots from No. 73 to No. 105.

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP 

📍Paris: Paris Masters (1,000) featuring Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Ben Shelton.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV

🎾 WTA

📍Hong Kong: Hong Kong Tennis Open (250) featuring Sorana Cîrstea, Leylah Fernandez, Alex Eala, Maria Sakkari.

📍Chennai, India: Chennai Open (250) featuring Janice Tjen, Elsa Jacquemot, Joanna Garland, Robin Montgomery.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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