Zverev expelled from the Mexico Open for racketeering with the referee’s chair

Outbursts of anger are usually not allowed in sports. And this Wednesday Alexander Zverev has surely learned this hard lesson after being expelled in a sudden way from the Mexico Open that takes place in Acapulco. His crime: racketeering with the referee’s chair after playing his doubles match that ended in defeat.

At first, the German tennis player seemed to have fit in well having been dropped from this competition along with his partner, the Brazilian Marcelo Melo. After greeting and congratulating the winners, Britain’s Lloyd Glasspool and Finland’s Harri Heliovaara, he began to hit the linesman’s chair in protest at the referee’s performance at the end of the match. Especially when he decided to accept a ball that Zverev claimed to have bounced out. All this with an 8-6 in the ‘supertiebreak’ of the third set and that was decisive to finish in the final 10-6.

He was so angry that the German, third in the world, was about to hit the line judge with a racket on the feet, who was stupefied, along with the public, at the tantrum that seemed to have no end. The worst thing is that he sat down on the bench and, far from calming down, he got up again to yell at the referee and hit his chair again. Fortunately, the referee came out unscathed from Zverev’s fit of rage who was in Mexico to revalidate his title.

It can’t be. The violent protest has cost Zverev an immediate expulsion from the tournament. His round of 16 match, which was to be played this morning, has been suspended and his rival, also German Peter Gojowczyk, goes directly to the next round. Surely from now on the disqualified tennis player thinks about it before getting involved again with rackets with a referee’s chair.