Perhaps the strangest tennis match in history — the one that began but never ended — happened in Myanmar last year. It was the Davis Cup. Pakistan was up one match on New Zealand when the referee, in a controversial and unprecedented decision, called off the entire contest because the grass courts had become unplayable. The default elicited cries of racial prejudice from the Pakistani side and all-around bewilderment on the part of the Kiwis. It led to changes in International Tennis Federation procedures for the Davis Cup and further exposed flaws in the competition’s format. And still, more than a year later, it’s difficult to be sure what exactly happened that hot afternoon in Yangon.
The tie1 began on a muggy April day. Pakistan hadn’t hosted a Davis Cup tie since 2005, before the ITF deemed the country too dangerous, a view still shared by most every sporting authority in the world. After years of playing on the road, this was Pakistan’s first chance to designate a neutral site. They chose the Pun Hlaing Country Club in Yangon, Myanmar, which is home to a Gary Player–designed golf course and two grass tennis courts.
Aqeel Khan, 34, won the first singles match of the tie against New Zealand’s Artem Sitak. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, also 34 and one of the world’s best doubles players and the most accomplished Pakistani player ever, split the first two sets of the second match against Daniel King-Turner. Qureshi led 3-0 in the third set when the referee, Asitha Attygala, a Sri Lankan who now lives in Australia, stepped onto the worn court, poked his pen into a deepening hole behind the baseline, and called off the tie. Final score: New Zealand 4, Pakistan 1, with all four of the winning nation’s victories coming by default due to unsuitable playing conditions. It was the first such result in Davis Cup history and one of the lowest moments in the competition’s 115-year existence.
Pakistan plays for redemption this weekend against Thailand. If Pakistan wins, it will graduate from Group II to Group I, the second-highest division in Davis Cup, below the World Group. (Thailand won the first two singles matches of the tie Friday and leads 2-0; Pakistan won its previous tie on the road against Philippines after trailing 2-0.) Pakistan won often enough to remain in Group I from 2003 through 2006; in 2005, the last year it held a home tie, it came within one victory of the World Group. Since 2007, it has fallen as far as Group III and never returned to Group I. But nothing that happens in Thailand will erase the memory of last year’s defeat in Myanmar.
“I never like to use this word, discrimination or racism, even though I have faced it on a personal level many times, being a Pakistani and a Muslim,” Qureshi said. “It has never happened in the Davis Cup history, why did it happen against Pakistan? If it was Australia, England, any other European country, this was not going to happen. No matter how bad the courts.”
Kris Dent, executive director of professional tennis at the ITF, which runs the Davis Cup, denies the charge. “It was a very unfortunate situation and I have great respect and admiration for Qureshi,” he said. “He’s correct that it wouldn’t happen to anyone else, because they wouldn’t prepare such poor courts to be played on. I have huge sympathy for Qureshi on this. He was let down by his association.”
That's possibly one of the greatest farces in modern day tennis history, here's another, courtesy of JAKE CURTIS......


LENS/Associated Press
One verbal outburst transformed Lleyton Hewitt's 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory over James Blake in 2001 from a thrilling second-round match into a racial controversy.
An African American linesman twice called Hewitt for foot faults on critical points in the third set against Blake, who has an African American father and white British mother.  
Hewitt did not like the calls and, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report that cited a transcript provided by the U.S. Open, Hewitt complained to umpire Andreas Egli: "Change him, change him. I have only been foot-faulted at one end. OK. Look at him. Look at him, and you tell me what the similarity is. Just get him off the court. Look at what he's done." (See video here.)
The crowd jeered Hewitt at the end of the match, believing his reference to "the similarity" was racially motivated.
U.S. Open officials did not fine or reprimand Hewitt, who claimed his comments were not racist. Blake took the high road, saying, "I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt," as per The Telegraph.
AND ONE MORE
A recipe for controversy was served up in 1979 when 20-year-old John McEnroe faced 33-year-old Ilie Nastase in a second-round match scheduled to start at 9 p.m

The match degenerated amid the antics of the two provocative players, and, according to the Bill Scanlon book Bad News for McEnroe: Blood, Sweat, and Backhands with John, Jimmy, Ilie, Ivan, Bjorn and Vitas, the crowd began booing and throwing paper cups and beer cans toward the court.
When Nastase pretended to go to sleep on the baseline in the third set, according to The Telegraph, chair umpire Frank Hammond issued a warning to Nastase. Later, Hammond hit Nastase with a penalty point and then a penalty game, giving McEnroe a 3-1 lead in the third set after McEnroe had won the first two sets.
Nastase still refused to play, so tournament referee Mike Blanchard instructed Hammond to put Nastase on the clock. After about a minute of continued inactivity by Nastase, Hammond defaulted Nastase, which brought on 18 minutes of what the Scanlon book described as "mob rule." The crowd of 10,000 was in a frenzy, fights broke out in the stands and security guards and police were called in.
In an attempt to restore order, tournament director Bill Talbert intervened, reinstating Nastase and replacing Hammond with Blanchard as the chair umpire.
McEnroe won the match in four sets, and McEnroe said in his autobiography Serious, excerpt provided by Tennis-Buzz.com, that he and Nastase went to dinner together afterward.


Entertaining sport it is.....