NEW YORK — The scene sparked memories of US Opens past, featuring the likes of Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors lighting up the night session with explosive bursts of emotion, abusing chair umpires or sparring with hecklers in Gotham’s they-only-come-out-at-night crowd.
Daniil Medvedev, a 23-year-old Russian already ranked No. 5 in the world, impatiently ripped a towel from the hands of a ballboy, tossing it onto the court. He was hit with a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. As jeers and boos rained down on him, Medvedev flipped his racket toward his chair in disgust. Soon he was walking toward the umpire, middle finger aimed at the crowd planted on his temple. The umpire was blind to the gesture, but the crowd was not. They grew incensed. We were right back in the 1970s.
At the end of the match (a win over Feliciano Lopez), as the crowd continued to boo and catcall, Medvedev got in its collective face in the on-court interview, taunting, “Thank you all, guys, because your energy tonight gave me the win.”
That was but one example of a trend that emerged at this US Open: Men behaving badly. You could see this coming the minute Nick Kyrgios hit the sport like a tsunami, reviving the McEnroe-esque rant, reprising Jimmy Connors’ legendary vulgarity and contempt for umpires. A segment of the public longs for a return to the days when colorful, controversial characters indulged in unpredictable and even outrageous behavior, especially if, like Medvedev, the player is a high performer. To many, tennis is like theater, or professional wrestling, in sore need of villains as well as heroes, and an antidote to the ultra-professional — some would say “robotic” — behavior of so many of today’s pros.
However you feel about it, a revolt is in the making against the politeness, bonhomie, and sterling sportsmanship ushered in by those frenemies Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The man at the spear point of the insurrection is Kyrgios, but the rebellious Australian isn’t alone among the players who abandon their filters and feel free to bare their emotions and, often, discontents.
As Labor Day came to a close, men at the US Open had accumulated a grand total of $71,500 in fines for 25 offenses, but it wasn’t Kyrgios with the biggest tab. That honor went to Medvedev, who has emerged as one of the most likely heirs to the Big Four. His tour-leading four, including $7,500 for verbal abuse, added up to $19,000.
Just as significant: Medvedev renounced the game’s semi-official “I love New York” attitude by dissing the fans. Those who remember McEnroe throwing sawdust in the face of a spectator or Connors taking a swing at one probably got a warm and fuzzy feeling. So did Kyrgios, who made a still of Medvedev holding his middle finger to his temple the background on his Twitter feed.
Medvedev leads the way with most total infractions (three), but Fabio Fognini was poised to give him a run for his money. The mercurial Italian incurred two fines totaling $5,000 during his first-round match but he ended up losing it to good sport and towering ace machine Reilly Opelka.
Kyrgios escaped the tournament relatively unscathed, looking more clownish than wicked in his three matches, although his mid-tournament suggestion that the ATP is “corrupt” could earn him a lengthy suspension. Given that he often claims to hate the game and misses his Australian home, this might play out as a brilliant example of the law of unintended consequences.
As any elementary school teacher will testify, unruly behavior is contagious. Thus it was hardly surprising that Novak Djokovic, long a paragon of restraint despite those shirt-shredding, chest-thumping episodes, had words with a heckler at one of his practice sessions, concluding his visit at the courtside fence with the words, “I’ll come find you. I’ll come find you afterward. Trust me, I’ll come find you.”
Djokovic would not divulge the nature of the dialogue, and suggested that his comment was not a threat but a promise “to take the guy out for a drink.”
The sour mood even rubbed off on Roger Federer, who uncharacteristically resorted to profanity when it was implied by a rival that he may have influenced the scheduling of his match.
This is not a great look for men’s tennis, especially among those who were sympathetic to some of the complaints Serena Williams lodged during and after that debacle of a US Open women’s final last year. She charged, among other things, that the men benefit from a double standard; they get away with more boorish behavior and rules violations than do women. It’s a valid criticism. The men may incur more fines than the women, but they also spend a lot more time treading the fine line between simple loutish behavior and fine-worthy infractions.
Although the women at $64,000 approached the same grand total in fines as the men, it was largely due to the $40,000 levied against Carla Suarez Navarro for “[poor] first-round performance.” The category was introduced to combat the trend of pros playing while not fit to compete in order to still claim first-round losers’ money ($58,000). The next most costly offense was the $3,000 price Simona Halep paid for the privilege of smashing up her racket. Only 12 fines were levied against women (exactly half the number of offenses as the men), none of them repeat offenders.
What is it about putting a racket in a guy’s hand that suddenly makes him want to act out? It may be something about the game, which puts elite athletes face-to-face in a struggle for supremacy. It’s a recipe that begs for displays of aggression. At the same time, there’s a taboo against trash-talking an opponent, so jacked-up players tend to trash talk the umpire, fans or their equipment — targets that aren’t likely to take a swing at them.
We’re reverting to an era when the iconoclasts rather than the icons set the tone for the game. This may be just the beginning, too. You could hardly blame an impressionable youngster coming up through the ranks for taking his cues from Kyrgios, who has been rewarded with fame and fortune while consistently underachieving and even stinking up many a joint. He has emerged as a pied piper leading fans and fellow players away from the nominally dull place where sportsmanship and good behavior — as exemplified by the Big Four — are paramount.
Men behaving badly have certainly enriched the coffers of the various Grand Slams tournaments. At the US Open alone, the total haul of fines is already well more than $130,000. But don’t worry, the money goes to a good cause: the Grand Slam Committee’s annual Christmas party.
Just kidding. The fines go to a fund dedicated to developing the game in emerging nations. So Kyrgios, Fognini, Medvedev and others are growing the game, even as their behavior sometimes seems to be trashing it.