How emotional can you get on a tennis court? As most of you know, very emotional! There is a limit, of course, but where does it go?
And when I ask the question about how emotional you can get on a tennis court, I don’t Naomi Osaka not wanting to continue a match because a person in the crowds scream “You suck!”. I think people in the public eye need to expect that. Now you don’t even need to be famous to get some nasty comments. You just need to be on social media.
However, this question mainly refers to in what way you can show anger. Joy is also an emotion, but rarely people show too much happiness out there. We’d rather seen a period of various form of racquet abuse, which in unlucky circumstances can lead to something more. Zverev’s racquet attack was more about the umpire than himself, so that was the worst incident in my opinion, while both Kyrgios‘ and Brooksby’s racquet throws could have led to something even worse if the racquet had landed badly.
What is the ATP doing?
ATP is not known to discipline unruly players fast and hard. It’s more about fines according to the regulations. But this is what ATP Chairman Gaudenzi had to say about recent racquet attacks. I got the quote from tennis.com
“The first three months of the season have seen an unusual frequency of high-profile incidents involving unsportsmanlike conduct,” said ATP CEO Andrea Gaudenzi in the notice. “This includes serious cases of verbal and racquet abuse.
“We have seen too many dangerous moments, with officials or ball persons caught in the crossfire of aggressive or disrespectful conduct. These incidents shine a bad light on our sport. This conduct affects everyone and sends the wrong message to our fans, especially young fans.”
“‘Effective immediately, and as we head into the clay court swing, the ATP officiating team has been directed to take a stricter stance in judging violations of the Code of Conduct,” it has been said in a statement to the players on the tour.
There is yet to be any formal changes in regulations, but according to sources, the ATP is currently seeing if anything needs to be revised.
Your thoughts?
What do you think the ATP should do? And is there anything that will be effective enough to calm boiling emotions on the tennis court. Playing tennis can make the calmest person into a madman and most of us that play the game knows the feeling of wanting to break every racquet in your bag just to let off some steam. Can you get the players to behave better with firmer rules or stronger enforcement of them? Or will this kind of thing keep on happening?
How emotional can you get on a tennis court? I’m curious to know!
