Andy Murray and Fabio Fognini were fierce rivals on the ATP Tour, but their matches were often marred by controversy – and one particular encounter saw the Scot lose his cool
Andy Murray was a tough competitor to unsettle during the heights of his tennis career, but there were still some instances when rivals attempted to disrupt his concentration. One such example occurred at the Shanghai Masters in 2019, when Fabio Fognini provided the opposition.
Murray and Fognini clashed nine times throughout their respective careers, with Murray defeating the Italian on his way to Olympic gold in Rio in 2016. Three years on, it was the other player who emerged victorious.
Former British No. 1 Murray had opportunities to secure victory in Shanghai, twice failing to close out the match before eventually succumbing to a 6-7, 6-2, 6-7 loss. It proved a heated encounter, however, with Murray losing his temper with his rival in a way seldom witnessed.
During that crucial third set, Murray instructed Fognini to “shut up,” and would subsequently reveal his reasoning behind such behaviour. “Someone made a noise, I didn’t know who made the noise, I looked in the direction of where the noise came from,” Murray revealed following his loss.
“He then told me, ‘Stop looking at me, what are you looking at me for?'”. “I was like, ‘I was just about to hit a shot and someone made a noise’.
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“He then told me to stop looking at him. He told me to stop complaining, to have a sense of humour. I wanted to know where the sound came from, and it came from him, which you’re not allowed to do.
“It’s against the rules, it’s hindrance, you shouldn’t do it. But he said I should have a sense of humour about that but in that moment neither of us were in a joking, laughing kind of mood.”
Murray revealed he had “never had that” across his hundreds of tour matches, and that he was left frustrated by umpire Fergus Murphy’s reluctance to warn Fognini.
“He [Fognini] wanted to engage with me, I probably shouldn’t have done, but I’m not having him talk to me like that on the court,” Murray added. Aside from that distraction, though, he confessed to annoyance about his own performance following the loss.
Murray had battled through a three-set encounter against qualifier Juan Ignacio Londero before succumbing to Fognini. The Italian 12th seed claimed a straight-sets triumph over Karen Khachanov in the subsequent round but was defeated by Daniil Medvedev in the quarter-finals.
It was Medvedev who would ultimately claim the entire tournament. The Russian, who knocked out Cam Norrie in the second round, eventually prevailed over Alexander Zverev in the final.
Murray had been on the comeback train when he faced Fognini, with hip surgery earlier in the year disruping his campaign, but it wasn’t long after the Shanghai Masters that he clinched a first title in two years with triumph at the European Open. He subsequently participated in Great Britain’s journey to the Davis Cup semi-finals, though he wasn’t involved in the knockout round clashes against Germany and Spain.
