PARIS (AP) \u2014 The tennis season is heating up with the French Open underway. That means that racket-smashing moments can\u2019t be far off.<\/p>\n
In a sport known for its mental challenges, it\u2019s part of the game to see top players lose their cool on court. In recent weeks, Daniil Medvedev and Daniel Altmaier have each had memorable, racket-mangling meltdowns on Europe\u2019s clay courts.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s nothing new, as anyone who remembers watching John McEnroe decades back can attest to.<\/p>\n
So what goes on inside players\u2019 heads that results in temper tantrums before packed stadiums?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about tennis,\u201d said former top-five player Andrey Rublev, who is known for his on-court anger \u2014 he sometimes bloodies his hands and body when he punches his racket strings and slams his knees to get the frustration out.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll (people) have this situation in life and you just lose it,\u201d added the 13th-ranked Rublev, whose coach, Marat Safin, said he broke 1,055 rackets during his playing days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be tennis. It\u2019s just the thing (in) tennis you are alone and they are watching you,\u201d Rublev said. \u201dSome people face it better, some let those emotions kind of control you. I\u2019m one of those guys who let those emotions to take over me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Medvedev, a fellow Russian, is the same way.<\/p>\n
Medvedev smashed his racket on the red clay seven successive times midway through an unusually poor performance from the former No. 1 player at the start of the clay-court season \u2014 a 6-0, 6-0 \u201cdouble-bagel\u201d defeat to Matteo Berrettini at the Monte Carlo Masters.<\/p>\n
Medvedev finished off his angry display by depositing his mangled frame in a court-side trash bin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I broke the racket, I kind of didn\u2019t (want to),\u201d Medvedev said. \u201cUsually I do want to do it when I do it. There I didn\u2019t want to. But I was like, \u2018You know, it\u2019s 6-0, 6-0. I cannot win one point.\u2019 Maybe sometimes this can give you a boost. And it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, German player Altmaier slammed his racket on the clay and then kicked the frame into the stands when his frustration boiled over during a tournament in Hamburg. He was fortunate that no spectators got injured because of his behavior.<\/p>\n
Federer, Serena and Djokovic had their moments<\/p>\n
Even Roger Federer was known for smashing his racket as a junior player. Then he cleaned up his act and become one of the classiest \u2014 and most successful \u2014 players in tennis history.<\/p>\n
At the 2009 U.S. Open, Serena Williams was penalized for shouting and cursing at a line judge who called a foot fault.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Novak Djokovic was kicked out of the U.S. Open for accidentally hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball \u2014 resulting in a stunning end to his 29-match winning streak.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka\u2019s emotions \u2018were destroying my game\u2019<\/p>\n
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka has also been known to lose her cool. Although she\u2019s improved in that department lately.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy emotions were destroying my game and my level was dropping dramatically when I would start overreacting on everything,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cAt the same time, my opponents would see that and they would step in and play better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka said keeping her emotions in check has been \u201ca huge improvement over the years in my career and really helped me to level up.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Coco Gauff\u2019s off-court racket-smashing moment at the Australian Open was documented on camera, it opened up a debate about players\u2019 privacy.<\/p>\n
Fifth-ranked Jessica Pegula also tends to keep her racket-smashing for off-court moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go find some place that\u2019s like maybe not near people and then I can break a racket,\u201d Pegula said.<\/p>\n
On court, Pegula is able to keep her emotions in check.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a super emotional person in general, so I think for me to like get to that point is a lot, but I think it\u2019s entertaining,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cSometimes I wish I could kind of wear my heart on my sleeve a little bit more and show more emotion, but it\u2019s not exactly my persona.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naomi Osaka curses quietly<\/p>\n
Naomi Osaka is another player known for keeping a steady demeanor on court. It wasn\u2019t always that way, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I had a pretty bad attitude when I was younger and my dad had a stern talk to me about it,\u201d Osaka said.<\/p>\n
Osaka now releases her anger so quietly that it\u2019s hardly noticeable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually do curse a lot on the court,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cI say it so softly you can\u2019t hear it and I\u2019m really glad, because I don\u2019t want to get fined for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorana Cirstea, the 36-year-old who this week became the oldest player to make her debut in the top 20, had a simple explanation for all the displays of emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a mental sport. Also, to be able to sustain that mentality for three long hours with all the adrenaline and the pressure, sometimes you don\u2019t handle it the best,\u201d Cirstea said. \u201cWe are human.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n
Andrew Dampf, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 The tennis season is heating up with the French Open underway. That means that racket-smashing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-696009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}