Zverev completely freaks out and is excluded from the tournament
Olympic champion Alexander Zverev freaks out and hits the referee
Alexander Zverev has also been disqualified for the singles competition after an unacceptable outburst of anger following his defeat in doubles at the ATP tournament in Acapulco. The Olympic champion had previously been upset about a decision by the referee.
This outburst of anger has consequences. Alexander Zverev insults the referee and completely freaks out after the game. After that he will be excluded from the tournament. He gambled away some of what he had worked so hard to build up. At least an apology follows.
EHe screamed, cursed, berated the referee, and then banged his tennis racquet on the referee’s chair. Alexander Zverev didn’t have himself under control. With this game in Acapulco, with this total freak, the 24-year-old gambled away a lot of the sympathy he had laboriously built up. role model function? Not at all. His behavior had nothing to do with fairness and sportsmanship.
Frustration with controversial, perhaps wrong, decisions is all too understandable. But what Zverev did at the ATP tournament in Acapulco must not happen. And it has immediate consequences: the Olympic champion was also disqualified for the singles competition following his defeat and freaking out in doubles.
That happened: Germany’s best tennis player played with his Brazilian doubles partner Marcelo Melo against the British Lloyd Glasspool and the Finn Harri Heliovaara. He finally saw a shot from Glasspool in the third set in the side and protested immediately. The chair umpire gave the ball well. It was 6:9 instead of 7:8. Zverev was beside himself. “The ball is out. The ball is way out,” he shouted. And then he got abusive, “That’s your line. That’s your damn line. You bloody idiot.” The audience responded with catcalls.
After the 2: 6, 6: 4, 6:10, Zverev hit the referee’s chair several times with his racket, on which the referee was still sitting. The audience reacted in shock and started booing him.
The ATP organization then excluded Zverev from the further course of the tournament due to “unsportsmanlike conduct”.
Zverev shows remorse
A decision that Zverev seems to accept a few hours later. “I will use the coming days to reflect on my actions and how to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he wrote in an Instagram story. He would have apologized privately to the referee.
In his statement, Zverev shows remorse for his freak out. “I’m disappointed in myself. It just shouldn’t have happened and there’s no excuse,” he said. He still wants to ask forgiveness from the fans, the tournament and the whole sport.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Last year, Zverev won the title at the top event in Mexico. The audience there is well-disposed towards him – that changed in the course of the doubles game.
Early on Tuesday morning he had won his first-round match against the American Jenson Brooksby after 3:20 hours 3:6, 7:6 (12:10), 6:2. The game only ended at 4.55 a.m. – never before on the ATP tour had a match ended later. In the round of 16, Zverev should have played against Peter Gojowczyk. The 32-year-old from Munich is now in the quarter-finals without a fight.
The reactions on the internet are devastating. “What’s wrong with that?” asks a user on Twitter. Another writes: “If embarrassing is no longer enough…” Or: “He could have saved himself his image appearance on “Small vs. Big”.
