“I think it was a bit too much,” Patrick Mouratoglou slams the critics for going too harsh on Alexander Zverev
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Patrick Mouratoglou and Alexander Zverev
Patrick Mouratoglou believes that while Alexander Zverev admittedly deserved the punishment he received for his Acapulco meltdown, fans should move on from the incident.
After losing a doubles match, third-ranked Alexander Zverev was expelled from the Mexican Open after forcefully slamming his racket on the umpire’s chair. The incident occurred after Zverev and Marcelo Melo were defeated 6-2, 4-6, 10-6 by Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara in Acapulco. Zverev slammed his racket against the umpire’s chair three times, sat for a bit, then got back up and yelled at umpire Alessandro Germani that he “destroyed the whole (expletive) match,” then slammed his racket against the chair once more as the umpire climbed down. Fearing being hit, Germani had moved his feet back at one point.
As a result, the German was disqualified from the tournament and fined $40,000 (£30,000) whilst receiving a suspended 8-Week ban, as well as having his prize money and ATP ranking points forfeited completely.
The incident drew a lot of criticism, and several well-known people, like Patrick Mouratoglou, have weighed in on the subject.
‘Alexander Zverev went too far’- Patrick Mouratoglou
Patrick Mouratoglou, who has been coaching Serena Williams for more than 10 years, believes Alexander Zverev went too far, but he’s equally unimpressed by people who jump on the bandwagon and “pulls players down” when they make a mistake.
As per him, “When I saw the images of Sascha in Acapulco shouting and hitting the chair umpire’s chair I thought ‘oof, he’s in trouble. I realise that he went too far. It’s one thing to lose your temper, but you still need to have boundaries and he went too far. In the tennis world where everybody is supposed to be perfect all the time, I think it is bad for his image in the short term. In the long term, people forget.”
“It is the responsibility of the ATP to take the sanctions that they feel are necessary. I don’t like when someone makes a mistake and everybody jumps on that person and pulls him down. I think it was a bit too much, what people said. I know we are in a sport where people think the athlete should be showing perfection all the time, everything that is not in line with that is shocking to them. I am not surprised that people expect heavy sanctions because we are in tennis. In soccer, if there are these types of sanctions 90% of the players won’t play soccer anymore,” expressed Mouratoglou whilst concluding.
However, amidst all of these controversies, Alexander Zverev has been supplanted as world number three by finalist Rafael Nadal before the Miami Masters on Wednesday, after losing in the second round at Indian Wells.
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Pritha Ghosh
(414 Articles Published)