De Minaur’s class on show in a sport known for ‘tennis tantrums’
Australia’s Alex de Minaur showed humour and class in his latest loss to Carlos Alcaraz but some tennis players are known to throw a tanty or two on court. Here’s why so many end up losing it
READING LEVEL: ORANGE
Alex de Minaur has shown excellent class after falling to Carlos Alcaraz in another nightmare match against the Spaniard.
Alcaraz completed an unbeaten season in ATP 500-level events when he cruised to a 6-1, 6-4 victory in the Vienna Open on Monday morning (AEDT).
Alcaraz closed out the victory on his first match point on de Minaur’s serve, beating the Australian for the seventh time in as many meetings in one hour and 27 minutes.
You can’t say de Minaur didn’t battle hard.
He took seven games in the first set to deuce* but only won one.
In the second set, de Minaur, who entered the final on a ten-match indoor unbeaten streak, saved break points in three of his first four service games. Alcaraz forced the break he needed in the 10th and final game.
Despite being crushed again, de Minaur showed solid sportsmanship when he delivered a speech that had his opponent applauding.
“Let me start off with Carlitos,” he said with a grin.
“Well done to you. To your team. It’s great to have you back on tour. I know all the fans appreciate it.
“I will say one thing, though: it is very annoying to play against you.”
The quip* drew some laughter from the crowd and Alcaraz leaned back in his chair and had a good guffaw* while putting his hands on his head.
De Minaur went on to say: “As I’ve said many times, you are one of the good ones. One of the great guys on tour, so thank you very much. Amazing week.”
Alcaraz also showed plenty of admiration for de Minaur after the match.
“His style is really dangerous,” said Alcaraz.
“He’s really fast, so you have to earn every point. You might hit a winner against everybody, except him. I had to be really focused on that.”
“I tried to be aggressive and show him that if he wants to win, he has to play better, more aggressive, more solid, and be smarter than me.”
Alcaraz did not drop a single set in five matches in Vienna, as he claimed the 28th title of his career.
The victory followed his title in Tokyo four weeks ago.
Alcaraz also won in Doha in February, before he was sidelined for almost five months with a wrist injury. All three 500 titles came on hard courts. The seven-time Grand Slam champion made his return to the courts at the US Open in New York, where he was eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Alcaraz said his form in Vienna had been encouraging.
“Obviously it has been a really emotional and amazing week for me. I learned a lot, to keep going forward, step by step, playing on indoor courts, and trying to gain more confidence playing on this surface,” he said.
FAMOUS TENNIS TANTRUMS
While de Minaur’s gracious loss was an example of good sportsmanship, tennis as a sport has been known to feature colourful dummy spits from angry players when they lose.
GQ magazine rounded up some of the most controversial moments in tennis history, including some well-known rants directed at umpires and the occasional racquet smash.
One such incident was by Marcos Baghdatis during the 2012 Australian Open, when playing against Stan Wawrinka. Baghdatis smashed a total of four racquets that game before going on to lose (and cop a fine for his poor behaviour).
Tennis superstar Serena Williams memorably argued with the chair umpire Carlos Ramos while playing against Naomi Osaka in the 2018 US Open Women’s singles final. The on court disputes took away from Osaka’s moment in the sunshine, while Williams’ allegations of sexism* became a heated topic among the tennis community after the match.
Long before Nick Kyrgios started blowing his stack, former champion John McEnroe became known as the original “SuperBrat” after a long, angry rant at the umpire during a first round Wimbledon match against Tom Gullikson all the way back in 1981. His tirade* started with the now famous line, “You can’t be serious” which was directed at the line judge, before he erupted into one of the most well-known tantrums in tennis history.
WHY TENNIS PLAYERS EXPLODE
So what is it about tennis that makes so many players lose control of their emotions?
According to media ambassador for Tennis Australia and former player Todd Woodbridge, it can be hard to control your temper when extreme concentration meets physical endurance and exhaustion.
“What happens within that is that there’s accelerated heart rate, there’s huge amounts of adrenaline*, and when those come together, you find that it is very hard to stay calm. Very few people are really able to do it,” Woodbridge told Esquire magazine in an interview last year.
“There’s a smothering feeling coming over you. Because what tends to happen is that, as you fatigue, you’ve got less time to recover, you start to panic, you start to go away from your game plan, you start to hit shots that are low percentage, then that becomes frustrating, and so the momentum builds to where you see somebody, as I like to say, lose the plot.”
In the same article, sports psychologist Dr Tom Ferraro said it was also very common for tennis players to have a tendency towards perfectionism*.
“Perfectionism is a problem where the athlete’s actually expecting not to make any mistakes,” Dr Ferraro told Esquire. “They don’t know that they’re processing things that way, but that’s what the reality is.”
“The cause is very frequently about an underlying low self-image that starts when you’re very young. It’s devastating because what happens is, you have chronic anger almost all the time, because you’re making small mistakes all the time.”
Although all sports are competitive, tennis is a game where every mistake counts and is measured by points that determine whether you win or lose.
“If you’re constantly angry at yourself, eventually it’ll break your defences down and you either act out with some crazy rage or you fall into despair,” Dr Ferraro said.
But making mistakes is completely unavoidable in tennis as in life. And most people do learn from their mistakes and losses, which usually makes it easier for them to keep their temper in check. As de Minaur demonstrated so admirably in Vienna, a little bit of humour always helps hose down the heat.
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GLOSSARY
- deuce: a 40-40 tie score
- quip: a witty remark
- guffaw: a loud explosion of laughter
- sexism: unfair treatment of someone based on their gender
- tirade: a long, angry speech
- adrenaline: a hormone produced by the body as part of the natural stress response that pumps it up ready to either fight a threat or run away from it, which makes it really hard to think calmly
- perfectionism: striving to always be perfect and never make mistakes, which is actually impossible, causing the person to easily feel dissatisfied, angry, guilty and sad when things don’t turn out the way they plan
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QUICK QUIZ
1. How long did it take Alcaraz to beat de Minaur in the Vienna Open?
2. What are some reasons that tennis players find it hard to control their emotions when playing tennis?
3. What are two example of famous tennis tantrums over the years?
4. In what way was de Minaur’s sledge against Alcaraz considered to be humorous and in good taste rather than being bad sportsmanship?
5. What is perfectionism?
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Good sportsmanship
Create a poster with five rules on being a good sport. Your poster should be clear, easy to read, visually appealing and your rules should be applicable to any sporting environment.
Display these outside and in the school gym or hall where kids play sports.
Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Visual Arts, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
2. Extension
“Winning is more important than good sportsmanship …”
Write three arguments for and three against this statement.
FOR: AGAINST:
Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
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Create a conversation between two characters from the article – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.
Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.