TENNIS star Ugo Humbert bizarrely stopped his Open Occitanie match to check his PHONE.
The world No 38 was 4-3 up against Adrian Mannarino during the decisive tie break in the third set and was about to serve.
But in a baffling moment, the 27-year-old decided to walk over to his bag and look at his phone.
After a brief check, he quickly put the phone back in his bag and then apologised for the interruption.
His fellow Frenchman Mannarino looked stumped by the unusual stoppage before play continued again.
And Humbert went on to lose the next four points as Mannarino clinched the deciding set.
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Some fans suggested his phone might have rang during the game and he was turning on silent to ensure no more interruptions.
One wrote on X: “I’m guessing he forgot to switch it off/put it on silent, and it rang in the middle of the tiebreak.”
Another added: “I watched this match with audio, you could hear his phone ringing, he barely looked at it. Silenced it and put his hand up to apologise.”
It was Humbert’s first tournament since the Australian Open last month, where he suffered a first-round exit against Ben Shelton.
In the opening round of the Open Occitanie, he beat Dutch star Botic Van de Zandschlup in straight sets to set up his meeting against Mannarino.
Humbert has won a total of seven career titles in tennis but has never got past the fourth round of a Grand Slam.
The France No 2 player reached his career-highest ranking of world no 13 in April 2024.
This is not the first time there has been controversy over phones on court in major tennis matches.
World No 1 women’s star Aryna Sabalenka received a warning for using a team member’s phone to take a picture of a ball mark at the Stuttgart Open in April 2025.
And in 2024, Novak Djokovic‘s Italian Open second-round match against Corentin Moutet was interrupted when the latter’s phone started ringing.
Moutet ran over to his bench and pretended to answer the call, leaving Djokovic in stitches of laughter.
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