Tennis players tend to have bad tempers. When things go south, generally the anger is taken out on the racket, a towel or something inanimate -- generally not the chair umpire's face.
Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov found a new way to express his frustration during Canada's Davis Cup first-round match against Great Britain.
Shapovalov had lost the first two sets to Kyle Edmund and was trailing 2-1 in the third set, when the 17-year-old mishit a forehand. Shapovalov was so angry that he smashed the tennis ball as hard as he could -- unfortunately chair umpire Arnaud Gabas' face got in the way.
That's gotta hurt.
The outburst resulted in a default, and Great Britain moved on to face France in the quarterfinals. Shapovalov clearly had no intention of hitting Gabas, and the youngster was understandably remorseful following the incident.
"Luckily he was OK, but obviously it's unacceptable behavior from me," Shapovalov said, according to BBC. "I just feel awful for letting my team down, for letting my country down, for acting in a way that I would never want to act. ... I can promise that's the last time I will do anything like that. I'm going to learn from this and try to move past it."
According to the Davis Cup Twitter account, Gabas had bruising and swelling and was taken to the hospital as a precaution, but Shapovalov found the umpire before he went to the hospital to apologize.
The International Tennis Federation has fined Shapovalov $7,000 for the incident. Hopefully the 2016 Wimbledon junior champion can put this nastiness behind him and go on to a prolific career.
