WATCH: Botic van de Zandschulp blows ninth set point with point penalty, loses in Doha to Gael Monfils

Botic van de Zandschulp had nine chances to push Gael Monfils into a third set at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha Tuesday.

The Frenchman denied him all nine times, with the final set point contributing to one of the more bizarre recent finishes one has seen in tennis.

Monfils prevailed, 6-1, 7-6 (9), to wrap up play. Six of his saves in the second set came in the lead-up to the tiebreaker, before Monfils saw three match points from 6-3 slip away.

On his eighth opportunity at 8-7, Van de Zandschulp bottled a forehand with a giant miss. He fired a well-placed serve to reach his ninth set point, but was still annoyed at his recent unforced error and launched a ball into the crowd.

That emotional lapse resulted in a point penalty being issued by chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani. The Dutchman had received a code violation warning after smashing his racquet during the 12th game that eventually saw his opponent force the tiebreaker.

If that wasn’t enough for the dramatic conclusion, two points later Monfils was aided by a net cord off a running forehand to put the final nail in the coffin for the world No. 70.

“To be honest, he played good. I lost a little bit of focus. Then I bring back the energy, you guys pushed me,” Monfils told the crowd afterwards.

“It was a real battle. At the end, I was a bit fortunate. But you know, I’ll take it.”

Van de Zandschulp opened 2024 with a win in Auckland over Christopher Eubanks, but has since dropped four consecutive contests. Two of those defeats came at the hands of Jannik Sinner, who is unbeaten so far this season.

For Monfils, he’ll look to post back-to-back victories for the first time this year when he takes on Zhang Zhizhen. He triumphed at this event six years ago over Andrey Rublev after finishing runner-up on three previous occasions.