Benoit Paire’s Controversial Behavior and Retirement at Malaga Challenger

The unfortunate spectacle of Benoit Paire during a tennis match

The 34-year-old French tennis player Benoit Paire was the protagonist of a striking event during the first round of the Malaga Challenger when he faced the Spanish Pedro Martínez at the Inacua Centro Raqueta, losing 6-0 and 4-2, before announcing his retirement of the contest.

In the match in question, the former number 18 in the ATP ranking began to give away points when he fell 0-3 in the first set. From that moment on, and with 30-0 in favor of the rival, he had two unforced errors that seemed easy to return for a tennis player of his caliber.

The match was somewhat uncomfortable for the spectators, who later saw how the Frenchman refused to run a ball from the Spaniard during the 4-0, a game in which he also threw a ball directly out of the court. But his controversial actions did not end there. In the fifth game Paire was practically no longer resisting each of the Valencian’s shots to the point of finishing 0-6 in the first set.

Although he managed to win two games in the second set, when Martinez reached 4-2, the current 123rd in the ATP world ranking decided to retire and not complete the duel, which earned him elimination from the tournament in the first round.

Hours after leaving the Malaga Challenger, and upon seeing the global impact that his performance generated through social networks, the Frenchman spoke on his Instagram account with a message that put the world of tennis on alert: “A period a little more complicated, I don’t feel well mentally the moment I enter a tennis court.. It happens, it’s up to me to find solutions to have fun again.”

It should be noted that, in recent months, the Frenchman has been showing irregular tennis in which he has not been able to string consecutive victories. While in this he did not manage to pass the first round, in the Alicante Challenger he did not pass the second, as well as in Orleans and Genoa.

The tennis player made headlines again a year after announcing that he had completely changed his habits to be more “professional.” In October 2022, the Avignon native referred to his transformation off the field to improve his career in dialogue with the local site Ouest France.

“I have thrown away two years of my sporting career and I assume that to recover them, I need to change many things and add many triumphs like this one,” he acknowledged after winning the Croatian Ajdukovic in the first round of the ATP Challenger Brest 2022. “The French public has a lot of expectations around me and that puts extra pressure on me,” he considered. In that same interview, he stated that “his mind was not in the necessary disposition to compete” and that “tennis had become an obligation, almost a punishment.”

The tennis player also had other controversial episodes for which his name made the covers of the sports media. From using a cell phone to expose an umpire’s mistake in a tournament to pulling down his pants while leaving after a loss, these were some of his poor decisions during his career.

In his career, the Frenchman won three titles at the ATP level (one in 2015 and two in 2019), in addition to having accumulated six other finals between 2012 and 2020. However, he was never able to hit the table in the most important tournaments. such as the Grand Slam or the Masters 1000, in which he only had a semifinal at the 2013 Rome Masters 1000 as an outstanding performance.

2023-10-10 13:22:00
#Benoit #Paires #controversial #plays #put #tennis #world #alert #dont #feel #mentally