After fine for barging ball boy, French star asks: Who’s more important?
ADRIAN MANNARINO has complained about Wimbledon’s ball boys and girls being treated with undue reverence – after he was penalised for barging into one of the youngsters during a match.
The 29-year-old French player was yesterday fined £7,000 after he bumped into a ball boy while walking back to his chair during his secondround victory over Japan’s Yuichi Sugita.
Marijana Veljovic, the Serbian umpire, judged the collision to be deliber- ate and docked Mannarino a point for “unsportsmanlike conduct”.
After the match, the Frenchman, who reached the fourth round in 2013, hit out at the decision, saying: “I don’t think he hurt himself. It wasn’t a big bump. In fact, he went into me.
“I don’t know who has priority on the court. Is it the players or the ball boys? Can you do Wimbledon with just ball boys? I don’t know.” Record fines have already been handed out to players at this year’s championships, with Bernard Tomic picking up the secondhighest recorded financial penalty in Wimbledon’s history.
Tomic was handed a fine of £11,500 for “unsportsmanlike conduct” after the Australian admitted he had faked an injury during his straight-sets loss to the German Mischa Zverev in the first round, and that he was “bored” with Wimbledon.
After being told by the umpire during yesterday’s match that his point had been docked for “unsportsmanlike conduct”, Mannarino replied: “What did I do? I was just passing by. We were shoulder to shoulder. I was just trying to move. I was slowing down, (he) was close to me, I had to stop it.”
Ms Veljovic then told Mannarino his behaviour was “unacceptable”, prompting a further outburst from the player.
He told her: “It’s a joke. I’m hurting myself just not to hurt [him] and you give me a warning.
“Ball kids are the priority, right? I cannot walk to my chair? I’m not hitting him. I’m hitting him as much as he’s hitting me.”
The All England club is proud of the rigorous training its ball girls and boys undertake before and during the championships and insists on the highest standards of behaviour from them on and off the courts.
Yesterday, another ball boy was accidentally hit in the face by a ball struck by Gilles Muller during his match against Aljaz Bedene, the British number four.
Muller went to the net to apologise after the ball hit the youngster.