{"id":668425,"date":"2026-05-27T17:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/668425\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:05:09","slug":"alexander-blockxs-team-consider-compensation-claim-after-french-open-tarp-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/668425\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Blockx\u2019s team consider compensation claim after French Open tarp accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 Alexander Blockx<\/a>\u2019s coach, Ruben Bemelmans, has said that they will consider seeking compensation after the young Belgian twisted his ankle on a tarpaulin at the back of a practice court at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

Blockx, a promising 21-year-old who is ranked No. 37, was playing on practice courts at the Paris Jean-Bouin club, a few minutes from the complex, on Tuesday. Blockx sprained his ankle toward the end of a session with Brazil\u2019s Jo\u00e3o Fonseca, which forced him to withdraw from his French Open<\/a> second-round match against No. 8 seed Alex de Minaur.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately during today\u2019s practice I heard a snap in my ankle while I sprained it thanks to the \u2018really necessary\u2019 covers at the back of the court @rolandgarros which is why I had to withdraw from tomorrow\u2019s match that I was really looking forward to. A lot of frustration but we move on,\u201d he wrote in a now-deleted post on Instagram.<\/p>\n

He then reposted his message, without the \u201creally necessary\u201d statement.<\/p>\n

But on Wednesday, Bemelmans said in a video interview that the team would investigate possible recompense. \u201cFor sure, there\u2019s no signs (saying) \u2018careful about covers in the back,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre the covers necessary in Jean-Bouin? I don\u2019t think so. There should be a solution for that because the courts are very narrow. There\u2019s not much space behind the courts. So in my opinion, it shouldn\u2019t be there or there should be another solution other than putting them on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the speed of the game is getting so quick, and I mean the courts there are very very narrow. \u2026 There can be other solutions than putting them on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you look at the match court, they are much much bigger, and even there the guys are returning from way behind the baseline because the speed of the game is increasing.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day, you could defend your line and put yourself on the baseline and attack the ball there, but now it\u2019s become so physical and you need to play from the back and then try to gain your position after a few shots. But yeah, that\u2019s unfortunately what happened to Alex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bemelmans, a former world No. 84, said he had given his feedback to tournament officials. Romain Rosenberg, the executive director of the Professional Tennis Players\u2019 Association (PTPA), said via text message that a doubles coach had complained to him this week about the safety of the Jean-Bouin practice courts because of, among other concerns, the lack of space behind the baseline.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers have complained about the safety of those courts for a while,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the French Tennis Federation (FFT), which organizes the French Open, was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n

The incident is reminiscent of one involving another Belgian. In 2017, Bemelmans\u2019 former Belgium Davis Cup team-mate David Goffin twisted his ankle on tarpaulin at the back of a court at Roland Garros. Goffin, ranked No. 12 at the time, was forced to retire from a tournament match against Argentina\u2019s Horacio Zeballos and was then out for more than six weeks.<\/p>\n

Cases of players being compensated for injuries suffered at a tournament are rare. One of the most high-profile cases saw the United States Tennis Association (USTA) found in 2018 to be responsible for 75 precent of Eugenie Bouchard\u2019s damages suffered at the U.S. Open three years earlier. Bouchard had suffered a concussion after slipping on a cleaning substance on the floor at the U.S. Open in September 2015 and was forced to withdraw from the tournament and subsequent events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Alexander Blockx\u2019s coach, Ruben Bemelmans, has said that they will consider seeking compensation after the young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,1794,428],"class_list":["post-668425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}