Brazil’s Marcelo Melo and the United States’ Bob Bryan explain a shouting incident during their doubles rubber, won by Melo and Bruno Soares, 7-6 (6), 6-7 (7), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. It occurred after Bob and Mike Bryan won the second set.
“It was 6-all in the tiebreaker in the second, I felt strange, Bob’s reaction, just running, too close from me, screaming on my ear,” Melo told reporters. “I don’t know what’s happened like that. Bob never did this before. We have really good relationship. I have him as a friend. In that moment I got in shock, ‘How Bob did this, is not normal.’ At the same time I want to see like the video again to see if he did it to me or to the crowd. If the guy do to the crowd is okay. It’s not okay, but it’s not words to say to another player. Sometimes you get like nervous, the crowd is too strong. But when you do directly to the players, I think there’s a problem.”
Bob Bryan responded: “Davis Cup is an emotional atmosphere. They got passionate after they thought they won the set. I got passionate to them. There were some words said. You know, no hard feelings, no grudges. It’s Davis Cup. This sort of stuff happens all the time. It didn’t affect the outcome of the match at all.”