It is an extremely disturbing sequence, viewed more than a million times. A man, filmed from a distance and in an extremely blurry manner on a clay tennis court, repeatedly physically attacks a teenage girl, dressed in sportswear in front of a bag and a racket placed on a bench. A first kick, then two slaps on the back of the head, followed by another kick in the thigh. The young girl does not react to the aggression, and prostrates herself on the bench. From where she is pulled by the man and thrown to the ground and beaten again. The video cuts off as several people are heard screaming, including one right next to the phone filming the scene.
The man who posted the video on Twitter is Serbian and is called Igor Juric. The latter lost his daughter, Tijana, in 2015, kidnapped and murdered at the age of 15. Since then, he has been involved in the fight against violence against children and adolescents via a foundation named after his daughter. “Another brutal violence from a father against his daughter,” he wrote on the social network. I received information that it was a family from China. We are going to file a complaint against this monster. »
According to several Serbian media, citing a Sunday statement from the local Interior Ministry, the man shown in the video was arrested by law enforcement. It is indeed a 50-year-old Chinese citizen, father and also coach of the young girl shown in the video. The man was arrested on the courts of the SC Banjica club in Belgrade before being taken into custody.
He has since been heard by the Serbian courts. The 50-year-old, whose initials VL have been communicated, appeared on Monday before the first general prosecutor’s office in Belgrade, accompanied by a court-appointed lawyer. The prosecution indicates in a press release, relayed by several media, that the man has admitted the acts of domestic violence, which expose him to two to ten years in prison.
He justified his aggression by the refusal of his daughter to train. He also said he did not mean to hurt her, and that it is a tradition in China to respect hierarchical orders. The prosecution asked the court that this trainer be kept in pre-trial detention to prevent any possibility of absconding as well as for fear of disturbing public order.
“It’s horrible”
Gray areas still remain around this sequence, the date of capture of which is unknown. “The attacker was arrested, but the video of the attack on this girl circulated among tennis coaches in Belgrade for two weeks and no one reported it”, Igor Juric was indignant on Monday on the set of Euronews Serbia. It is also unknown what the father and daughter were doing in Serbia.
At the same time, the violent scene has crossed the borders of this Balkan country. On social networks, several personalities from the world of tennis were indignant at the cruelty of the father towards his daughter. “It’s horrible,” exclaimed 2015 Roland-Garros winner Stan Wawrinka on Twitter.
“It is absolutely unacceptable. Horrible. No other word. We must eradicate all forms of child abuse, whether physical or psychological, loose on the same social network the former trainer of Serena Williams, Patrick Mouratogou. It affects all sectors of our civil society. Not just tennis. Let’s think about how we can eradicate it in our sport. The mother of British tennis player Andy Murray, also a coach, called on the international federation to take up this “horrible example of parental physical violence in youth tennis”.
The Spanish player Paula Badosa was also moved by this “madness”. “The worst thing is that this is not the only case in our sport. People put their p….. frustrations on the athlete. Fed up! “. The former world number in doubles, Pam Shriver, also challenged the star of the circuit Novak Djokovic, asking him “to act behind the scenes” in this file which occurred in his country of origin.
