The umpire began to defend his stance saying, “It is just that is a plastic or something is coming in the middle of the court…”

“There’s millions of them on the court. There’s one there. There’s one there,” Zverev said approaching the official while holding up a feather and pointing at a few others.

Zverev, however, was quick to rebound from the avian menace to storm past American paul into his third Australian Open semi-final with a 7-6 (1), 7-6 (0), 2-6, 6-1 victory.

“Yeah, I’ve never had that before that we stop a point because of a feather. So that was new to me,” Zverev laughed off the incident after the match.

“Not sure it was a hindrance to anybody. It’s not like a hard object.

“Like even if the tennis ball hits the feather, it doesn’t really change anything. It doesn’t change the trajectory of the ball or the bounce of the ball or anything like that. But, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe the umpire did the right call and maybe not. I have no idea.”

Zverev was already heated earlier in the game, when a spectator yelled “out” during a point that he lost. Zverev complained about it to Forcadell, who asked the crowd not to shout during points. After losing the following point, Zverev was warned about showing too much frustration.

– With AP inputs