{"id":46233,"date":"2021-03-17T23:13:55","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T00:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=46233"},"modified":"2021-03-18T06:00:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T06:00:30","slug":"erratic-stars-rant-after-latest-pathetic-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=46233","title":{"rendered":"Erratic star's rant after latest 'pathetic effort'"},"content":{"rendered":"

French tennis star Benoit Paire<\/a> has again attempted to justify his recent erratic behaviour, that has seen him deliberately throw matches on the ATP Tour.<\/a><\/p>\n

Paire, currently ranked 31st in the world, has won only one of his eight singles matches in 2021, a straight sets win over world No.1165 Nicolas Jarry in Cordoba.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the Frenchman lost both matches at the ATP Cup, as well as his opening round matches at the Australian Open, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Acapulco.<\/p>\n

Paire's lack of effort was especially evident during his loss in the Argentina Open to local favourite Francisco Cerundolo.<\/p>\n

After a Cerundolo serve was ruled to be an ace, Paire began gesticulating that the ball was out, and a heated clash took place with umpire Nacho Forcadell.<\/p>\n

When Forcadell refused to back down, Paire spat on the mark on the court, yelling furiously. He was later penalised a point after another run-in, and then simply gave up in the final game of the match, serving deliberate double faults.<\/p>\n

\"Benoit<\/p>\n

His final serve was a half-hearted attempt while a ball boy was still on court retrieving the ball from the previous serve.<\/p>\n

In an interview with French publication L'Equipe, the 31-year-old admitted that pandemic life has taken its toll on his mental health.<\/p>\n

"I lost in the first round, so much the better: I will be able to get out of the bubble fairly quickly and enjoy a few days before Miami," he explained.<\/p>\n

"Tennis is not my priority for the moment. Getting out of the bubble is the only goal I have at every tournament."<\/p>\n

\"Benoit<\/p>\n

With prizemoney reduced due to COVID-19, particularly at the lower-level events, Paire says the incentive is not there to make it to the later rounds of a tournament.<\/p>\n

"I arrive, I take some money and I go to the next tournament: I do my job," he said.<\/p>\n

"There, if you win an ATP 250, you only pocket $30,000. I took $10,000 each time by losing straight (sets). Why rip yourself off like a nut to win barely more?"<\/p>\n

Paire's lack of interest was again evident this week in Acapulco, when he was beaten 6-3, 6-1 in 68 minutes by Stefanos Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n

Leading tennis reporter Jose Morgado tweeted that Paire's effort was "pathetic."<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/josemorgado\/status\/1372034997515878408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

After his loss to Cerundolo, Paire tweeted a picture of his career earnings, along with a message in French. Translated to English, the message said: "In the end it's worth it to suck."<\/p>\n

He has earned more than $11 million in his career.<\/p>\n

It's not the first time Paire has complained about bubble-life. One of the 72 players caught up in hard-quarantine in Melbourne prior to the Australian Open, the Frenchman hit out at tournament organisers.<\/p>\n

"I think it's s–t, and what happened is shameful," L'Equipe reported him as saying.<\/p>\n

"Overall I'm very disappointed with this tournament.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"A truncated preparation, truncated matches. To me, this is scandalous."<\/p>\n

Just last week he spoke out about the difficulties of travelling during the pandemic, and the fact that the majority of tournaments are played in front of a handful of fans at most.<\/p>\n

"The ATP circuit has become sad, boring and ridiculous," the 31-year-old wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n

"I know you are going to say you don't realise how lucky you are… but playing in closed stadiums without any atmosphere [isn't] why I play. Having to stay at a hotel or club and be forbidden to go out without risking a fine, where is the pleasure of travelling?<\/p>\n

"Tennis [has] become a tasteless job… I need time to adapt to this pseudo ATP circuit but I will make the efforts to try to just rediscover the pleasure of playing tennis."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French tennis star Benoit Paire has again attempted to justify his recent erratic behaviour, that has seen him deliberately throw matches on the ATP Tour. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46235,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46233\/revisions\/46235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}