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Unbelievable in Melbourne: heated argument between court and stands, coach abandons tennis player

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It really has something of the unbelievable about what happened at the Australian Open on Wednesday, with the match on Court 5 between Elsa Jacquemot and Yulia Putintseva providing surreal scenes when the French athlete, overwhelmed by emotions for a match in which she never managed to put her Kazakh opponent in trouble, began to rail against her coach Simon Blanc, seated in the front rows. A full-blown argument ensued, leading Blanc (among others, Putintseva’s former coach) to leave the stands impatiently.

The audience present watched dumbfounded at the tense moment, with Jacquemot who at 0-5 in the first set harshly criticized the tactics devised by her coach (accusing him of helping, in this way, her former player), while the latter instead urged her to concentrate solely on the game. Following her, from there on, was Jacquemot&#8217s other coach, Alizé Cornet, who tried to encourage her and make her mentally find her way back into a difficult-to-unravel skein. Nothing, however, worked and Putintseva won the match with a clear 6-1, 6-2.

Interviewed by L’Equipe, Jacquemot responded thus to a specific request for an explanation of what happened on the Melbourne court: “I really don&#8217t want to talk about it. It&#8217s not easy, this is a match that I messed up from start to finish. I have to keep working on how to overcome external elements that disturb my game, today&#8217s is a missed opportunity. It&#8217s up to me to work on it for the next matches, I have to learn to stay focused on myself and be influenced less”.

Francesco LuciveroGaston vents after match with Jannik Sinner: “I couldn”

Hugo Gaston vents after match lost to Jannik Sinner
The French tennis player was forced to retire in the first round of the Australian Open
Gaston, down 6-2 6-1, had to surrender at the end of the second set due to an abdominal problem
"My abs gave out after a while'"
"I don’t remember exactly the moment, but it was in the middle of the first set"

"I asked for an anti-inflammatory, but I had discomfort at every service"

"C'is great disappointment, I could not afford to play 50% and I stopped"

"Even at 100%, beating Jannik is virtually impossible"

"C'is frustration and sadness, because playing against Jannik, especially on a field like that, doesn’t happen every day"

"Before I was happy to be there, trying to enjoy the moment, to have fun"

"Now I hope the'injury is not serious, I have to focus on this"

A 2003 class, currently ranked 60th in the WTA rankings, Elsa Jacquemot had made a confident start at the Australian Open, overcoming world number 20, Ukraine&#8217s Marta Kostyuk, 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(7) in the first round. Against Putintseva, however, the young Frenchwoman was never in the match and was forced into’elimination.

Before returning to France, however, Jacquemot has one more engagement in Melbourne, represented by the women’s doubles. Indeed, the French tennis player, paired with Colombian Emiliana Arango, is still in the running after beating the veteran pair of Ekaterina Alexandrova and the timeless Venus Williams.

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