He saw red. By implying that the referees at the Australian Open were drunk, Frenchman Corentin Moutet will pay the price. He received a fine of 15,000 Australian dollars (around 14,500 euros) from the organizers of the first Grand Slam of the season.
The reason for his anger dates back to Thursday during his victorious match against the American Mitchell Krueger (4-6, 6-4, 7-6, 6-4). During the second set, the referee interrupted a rally when he judged that the ball had bounced twice. And Moutet jumped up. First belching his incomprehension: “No! But no, man, show me the slow motion. What the fuck, man, how can you say it’s not? Something like that, you call the wrong ball? Stop saying: Why are you angry ? I’m pissed because you called the wrong ball. That’s the problem: you only have one thing to watch out for. You can’t focus on that and make mistakes, it’s crazy…”
But then the 25-year-old Frenchman continued to pile on the pressure. And these words appear in black and white on the referee’s report: “How can you give guys like that a euro? How can you waste euros like that? Or Australian dollars, whatever. Man, every night, all the refs get drunk here. And then the next day, they ruin the match. How is this possible, man? I’m here fighting, I work every day. I’m fighting to be here. And they ruin the match like that. And I’m supposed to stay calm? How is this possible? »
Eliminated in the next round, Moutet was supposed to leave Australia with a nice prize money of 175,000 euros, before taxes. For getting carried away, he will therefore only receive 160,500.
