{"id":591890,"date":"2026-04-09T06:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T06:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:02:11","slug":"how-to-smash-a-tennis-racket-style-control-damage-aggression-and-danger-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591890\/","title":{"rendered":"How to smash a tennis racket: Style, control, damage, aggression \u2014 and danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the idyllic surrounds of the Monte Carlo Country Club, Daniil Medvedev<\/a> was raging.<\/p>\n

After missing a routine backhand to conclude a miserable eight games against Matteo Berrettini, he destroyed his tennis racket in just about every way possible.<\/p>\n

He hoiked it into the green hoardings at the back of the court. He dashed it against the red clay, sending it skittering sideways and forcing him to walk after it with the humiliating gait of a child picking up a fallen ice cream.<\/p>\n

By the time it was so mangled that he could fit it into a bin with only a small maneuver, he had smashed it seven times in all. By the time his Monte Carlo Masters match against Berrettini was over, he had suffered the first 6-0, 6-0 defeat of his career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Compilations of destroyed rackets grace the internet. It is one of the most visceral and relatable things that can happen on a court, even if for some, it is little more than a display of unsportsmanlike petulance.<\/p>\n

If developing a metric for smashing tennis rackets, it might be useful to look at style, control, damage and aggression \u2014 thank you to the British TV series Robot Wars for these categories \u2014 but why do the stars do it, and how?<\/p>\n

This is the art and science of the racket smash, the tennis staple that brings code violations and fines as much as spectacles for fans and relief for players.<\/p>\n

The history of the racket smash is probably as long as that of tennis, but a Pittsburgh Post Gazette report from 66 years ago describes Australia\u2019s Mervyn Rose as a \u201cracket buster\u201d for smashing a couple at the Australian National Tennis Championships in 1958, a decade before the start of the Open Era. Players of all kinds of temperaments, skill levels and game styles have done it, do it, and will do it in the future \u2014 and there are methods to the madness that takes over a tennis player in the throes of frustration.<\/p>\n

When Andrey Rublev was frustrated during a first-round Wimbledon defeat to Francisco Comesa\u00f1a of Argentina in 2024, his second thought was to smash his tennis racket.<\/p>\n

His first thought? Protecting the Wimbledon grass.<\/p>\n

In a press conference after his 4-6, 7-5, 2-6, 6-7 defeat, the then-No. 6 seed at SW19 said: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have done it if I could hit the racket on the ground, but we are not allowed to hit the grass in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cit\u201d he was referring to was smashing his tennis racket: not on the court, or a structure, or the fence, but his own leg.<\/p>\n

As racket smashes go, there isn\u2019t much smashing of the racket here. Rublev\u2019s knees and thigh were bruised and he drew blood from his leg, but human flesh can\u2019t break a carbon fibre beam.<\/p>\n

It might have provided the requisite emotional release, but the self-flagellation \u2014 a sad feature of Rublev\u2019s game in 2024 \u2014 was more painful to watch than any kind of spectacle.<\/p>\n

Rublev is not the first player to use his body as a highly inefficient smashing post. Mikhail Youzhny, the Russian who reached the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slam tournaments, wrote himself into tennis lore in 2008 by hammering his racket into his own forehead after missing a relatively easy return down 4-5 against Nicolas Almagro of Spain in Miami. Something inside him had cracked, but thankfully neither skull nor racket did the same and he actually won the match from that point \u2014 after he\u2019d cleaned up the blood.<\/p>\n

This mode of destruction is an outlier and not just for its bodily harm. It doesn\u2019t do a very good job of smashing the racket; it\u2019s disturbing and has a terrible opportunity-cost ratio for causing injury to one\u2019s self. It\u2019s in the same league as the frustrated kick out or lash out at a wall that results in a broken hand or foot, as Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech experienced at his home Grand Slam tournament in 2024.<\/p>\n

Up two sets to one but down 0-2 in the fourth against Tomas Martin Etcheverry, he kicked an advertising hoarding in anger while still in a position to win. He injured his toe and had to retire.<\/p>\n

The stock smash \u2014 deployed by Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka; inveterate smashers Marcos Baghdatis, Benoit Paire, John McEnroe, and Nick Kyrgios<\/a>, and the masters of the art, Marat Safin and Goran Ivanisevic \u2014 relies on that other intrinsic part of tennis machinery: the court.<\/p>\n

Dashing a graphite frame into the blue acrylic of the U.S. Open and Australian Open, or the brick red terre battue of the French, is the inverse of Rublev\u2019s self-flagellation: it mangles the racket efficiently, does significant damage, and is somewhat controlled (as the player does not let go). That won\u2019t stop a code violation for racket abuse, but it prevents some of the less intended consequences of more stylish methods.<\/p>\n

At the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells this past March, colloquially known as tennis paradise, its hard courts turned into a graveyard of twisted strings and mangled frames.<\/p>\n

First there was Alexander Bublik, whaling his racket into the green court behind the baseline against Rinky Hijikata with abandon and devastation.<\/p>\n

Then there was Mirra Andreeva, tossing hers aside against Kate\u0159ina Siniakov\u00e1 before destroying it while sat down between sets.<\/p>\n

And finally Taylor Fritz, snapping his over his thigh for a higher degree of difficulty against Alex Michelsen.<\/p>\n

Alexander Bublik\u2019s racquet doesn\u2019t work anymore<\/p>\n

pic.twitter.com\/QBUxPSgdyU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Barstool Tennis<\/a> (@StoolTennis) March 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Among the elite players of the last two decades, Rafael Nadal and Venus Williams stand out for their complete aversion to damaging rackets. Nadal so much so that when Argentinian Gaston Gaudio claimed that the Spaniard broke seven after a defeat in 2005, Nadal accused him of lying. Williams, for her part, takes the view that smashing a racket signals to the opponent that they have a player on strings. Speaking in an interview with her then-coach Eric Hechtman in 2022, Williams said: \u201cI love to see someone smash their racket. Especially against me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, go ahead, come undone, just unravel\u2019, and it\u2019s like this is all my doing and I\u2019m the puppet master. Dance! Like I\u2019m Geppetto,\u201d she said, referring to the creator of Pinocchio.<\/p>\n

She would certainly have liked to face Safin and Ivanisevic. The latter broke so many rackets during a match in 2000 that he had none left and had to retire; Safin became synonymous with the practice, claiming in 2020 that he broke 1,055 rackets in his career.<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz was another player who had stood out from the crowd \u2014 until he met Gael Monfils in Cincinnati in 2024. Frustrated at allowing a possible break of serve to slip away, the Spaniard produced an absolutely textbook example: bending his knees and jumping into the court for extra leverage, remaining balanced as he further turned his apparatus of four Grand Slams to smithereens. He now has seven, and his rackets have survived unscathed since.<\/p>\n

“He desperately wants to win this match” \ud83d\udc40#CincyTennis<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/QkiDhvNHtw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Tennis TV (@TennisTV) August 16, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wimbledon doesn\u2019t allow the would-be destroyer to employ any ground force. The threshold for a code violation on the grass is significantly lower, as Andreeva found out to her cost in 2023, when a very soft smash \u2014 or a heavy accidental drop, depending on who you ask \u2014 earned her a point penalty in the dying throes of her match with Madison Keys.<\/p>\n

Its springiness also lends added risk to the close and more dangerous cousin of the racket smash: the racket-smash-throw, which is a liability on any surface. When a player fully lets go of their racket and hurls it to the floor, the frame can bounce up and go just about anywhere.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios pinged one into the crowd at Wimbledon in 2017 and was duly given a code violation; Irina Camelia-Begu brought a fan to tears at the French Open when she threw her own and it ricocheted into the stands. Players are at risk of the ultimate price of racket abuse \u2014 disqualification \u2014 when their actions endanger a spectator or other person on court, but players that endanger themselves, Rublev chief among them, are rarely given warnings.<\/p>\n

More frustratingly, the penalties for racket abuse are outcome-weighted, even though the risk of throwing a racket in anger does not change according to whether or not it hits somebody. Kyrgios received a $20,000 fine at Indian Wells in 2022 for nearly hitting a ballkid with a bounce throw but could easily have been defaulted. The same is true of ball abuse, when a fuzzy yellow thing volleyed at high speed into a wall of spectators has no rhyme or reason as to whether it harmlessly thuds into a wall or leaves a fan with a nasty bruise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Kyrgios is one of the modern game\u2019s more consistent offenders (Clive Brunskill \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Players will still find ways to break things. To get around the grass edict, they find whatever solid surface they can find against which to exorcize their anger. In last year\u2019s Wimbledon final against Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic<\/a> disposed of his preferred whack-it-on-the-ground for wrap-it-around-the-net-post, tossing the frame to the side. Stan Wawrinka did what Rublev could not, but Fritz could, and broke a racket around his own knee on the lawns of Queen\u2019s, while Mikael Ymer disturbingly hammered the umpire\u2019s chair so hard that he broke a hole in it in Lyon.<\/p>\n

Others will simply do their smashing in private, or so they think \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka was caught putting frame to floor after losing the U.S. Open to Coco Gauff in 2023 by a video whose release was contentious; Gauff suffered the same at this year\u2019s Australian Open.<\/p>\n

After explaining the method in his 2024 smash, Rublev went on to explain the madness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why I did that at that moment, I couldn\u2019t stand it anymore, I needed to let my emotions out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s disquieting to watch elite athletes go through such torment \u2014 or in other cases, display fits of anger that sadly can betray their truer natures \u2014 the racket smash is also one of the more relatable parts of a sport whose highest echelons are completely off limits.<\/p>\n

Millions of amateur tennis players around the world will never win a point at Wimbledon, stand on the crushed brick of Roland Garros, or walk out onto Arthur Ashe or Rod Laver in New York and Melbourne. But many of them will miss a gimme shot on a big point, pull back their arm in frustration, and pause:<\/p>\n

Style? Control? Damage? Aggression?<\/p>\n

The wise choice? None of the above. Wisdom can be hard to come by on a tennis court.<\/p>\n