Meltdowns come in a variety of shapes and sizes. When Shane Lowry found his ball in someone else’s divot mark on the Friday of the US PGA Championship at Quail Hollow but was not permitted to clean and replace, his gaskets started to give way.
When he hacked the ball 60 yards into a greenside bunker, they blew. Slamming his club into the turf and loudly swearing about “this place” before making bogey at the hole, Lowry missed the cut for the weekend.
In 1995, Manchester United’s enigmatic playmaker Eric Cantona launched a kung-fu kick that stunned the world of soccer but ensured he graduated from Old Trafford a folk hero.
During a Premier League game against Crystal Palace, the Frenchman received a red card and, as he made his way towards the tunnel, a fan ran to the hoarding raining down profanities. In a moment of red-misted rage, Cantona jumped the barrier with a flying kick aimed at the fan.
When Italy played France in the 2006 Fifa World Cup final, Zinedine Zidane brought his foaming-at-the-mouth moment to camera in the last game of his career with France.
Clownishly headbutting Italy’s Marco Materazzi in extra time, the French captain bid adieu and ended his international journey with a red card.
Serena Williams was always a player who was aware of the performative side of tennis. In the 2018 US Open final against Naomi Osaka, Williams was given a first code violation after umpire Carlos Ramos judged a gesture from team member Patrick Mouratoglou to be coaching.
Williams – who was aiming to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles – said she had not received coaching, telling the umpire she would “never cheat to win and would rather lose”.
(Mouratoglou later admitted that he had been coaching from the box.)
Williams received another violation for a racket smash at 3-2 in the second set, leading to Ramos docking her a point. A furious Williams walked over to Ramos to scream blue murder as the crowd started booing.
“You are a liar. You will never be on a court of mine as long as you live. When are you going to give me my apology? Say you are sorry,” demanded Williams, who also called Ramos “a thief” for taking her points.
In the same stadium this week at Flushing Meadows, the experts would have said that the volatile Russian Daniil Medvedev should have avoided sensory overload, taken precautions against overwhelming situations and sidestep any unexpected changes.
The psychologists would have suggested a coping mechanism, a safe place or advised him to remove the emotion and to set process-oriented goals instead of outcome-based ones.
Instead, Medvedev devoted almost seven minutes to inciting the crowd and railing at the umpire, Greg Allensworth, after a photographer prematurely entered the court on match point between opponent Benjamin Bonzi’s first and second serve.
The umpire then awarded Bonzi with another first serve.
“First serve. Ladies and gentlemen, because of the delay caused by an onside interference, first serve has been granted,” Allensworth announced.
The “take two” idiom, which is common in club tennis, did not sit well with the Russian as he crashed and burned.
“Are you a man? Are you a man?” the world number 13 challenged Allensworth. “Why are you shaking? What’s wrong, huh? Guys, he wants to leave. He gets paid by the match, not by the hour.’
“What did Reilly Opelka (tennis player) say?,” Medvedev then repeatedly shouted to the crowd as he continued to stoke the fires.
Opelka had earlier in the year been fined by the ATP Tour for branding Allensworth the “worst ump (umpire) on tour”.
Medvedev then returned to the baseline and continued to encourage the spectators to get involved. It was more than six minutes before Bonzi finally hit his serve.
But the lasting image of Medvedev losing in the first round of a Grand Slam for the third time in a row was not a comfortable one. It was disquieting.
Instead of making a quick exit, he sat disconsolately on his chair. In a catatonic state, he then obliterated a racket by repeatedly smashing it against a metal bench that was holding his belongings.
He swung the racket more than 20 times into the bench edge using both hands. Even when the broken head was hanging by strings and flapping, he metronomically kept the pounding going.
It went far beyond bad behaviour. The body language spoke of defeat and bewilderment. Medvedev was in deep distress, his mental frailty cruelly exposed.
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As is often the case across sports, there was more schadenfreude around the court than compassion.
Many of the fans would have known that Medvedev simply opted for what he has opted for many times before, which is blowing his stack. He has done it many times.
This week, he was fined $42,500 (€36,500) for the tantrum, which is pocket change for a player worth €40 million in prize money.
A more progressive method would be to stage an intervention. Offer an option to use the fine to pay for professional help.
That way, the ATP Tour has some chance of correcting a problem that has only got worse in Medvedev’s 11-year career.