Feb. 25 (UPI) — Alexander Zverev’s decision to attack an umpire’s chair with his tennis racket will cost him more than $70,000 in fines and lost prize money from the Mexican Open, the ATP Tour announced.
The German, ranked No. 3 in the world, repeatedly struck the chair with his racket and was disqualified Tuesday from the Mexican Open. The ATP announced the disciplinary actions Thursday in a news release.
The incident occurred after the third set of Zverev and Brazilian Marcelo Melo’s doubles match against Lloyd Glasspool of Britain and Harri Heliovaara of Finland.
Zverev, who was upset about a ruling, repeatedly swung his racket at the chair, nearly hitting the umpire’s feet.
The ATP fined $20,000 for verbal abuse and another $20,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct. Those fines are the maximum for each violation.
The ATP also said Zverev will forfeit prize money from his singles and doubles matches, a total of $31,570. He also lost ATP rankings points from the event.
Alexander Zverev has been THROWN OUT of the Mexican Open for attacking the umpire’s chair at the end of his doubles match pic.twitter.com/CWhQ1r6kwj— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) February 23, 2022
The ATP said it will continue to review in the situation. Zverev, the 2020 Summer Games men’s singles gold medalist, issued an apology Wednesday for the incident.
He wrote in the Instagram story post that it is “difficult to put into words how much” he regretted his behavior.
“I have privately apologized to the chair umpire because my outburst toward him was wrong and unacceptable, and I am only disappointed in myself,” Zverev wrote.
“It just should not have happened and there is no excuse. I would also like to apologize to my fans, the tournament, and the sport that I love. As you know, I leave everything on the court. [On Tuesday] I left too much.
“I am going to take the coming days to reflect — on my actions and how I can ensure that it will not happen again. I am sorry for letting you down.”
The 2022 Mexican Open semifinals are to be held Friday night in Acapulco. No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece faces No. 6 Cameron Norrie of Great Britain in the first matchup. No. 1 Daniil Medvedev of Russia then battles No. 4 Rafael Nadal of Spain for the other finals spot.(function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(d.getElementById(id))return;js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=’https://embed.ex.co/sdk.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document,’script’,’exco-sdk’));
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