Tennis players can cause quite a racket by smashing rackets

MELBOURNE, Australia — Way behind in a match he soon would lose, Alexander Zverev leaned forward in his Australian Open sideline seat to repeatedly, and violently, crack his racket against the court with a reverberating thwack. — Eight times in all, before throwing down the offending, and now-mangled, piece of equipment.

Caused quite a, well, racket.

“I heard it,” said Zverev’s opponent Monday, 2016 Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic. “I don’t think I looked over. I think it was pretty clear what was going on.”

It certainly was not unusual. Smashing rackets is the most public form of anger, um, mismanagement in professional tennis, done all the time by all kinds of players, whether they are men or women, famous or unknown, seeded or otherwise, winning or losing. Over the first week of the Australian Open, Naomi Osaka, Dominic Thiem,Ryan Harrison and Daniil Medvedev, just to name a few, joined Zverev in producing GIF-worthy outbursts.

For better or for worse, racket-breaking is as inescapable an element of the sport as forehands and backhands, often revealing frustration, sometimes reversing the course of a contest, usually resulting in a fine of thousands of dollars, and even — as was the case with Serena Williams during her U.S. Open final loss to Osaka last September — occasionally costing a player a point (in Williams’ case, because of an earlier warning).

“I love it!” exclaimed Henri Leconte, the 1988 French Open runner-up. “I mean, sure, it’s not good for kids to see. But sometimes, it’s very important to show emotion.”

Current players will cite McEnroe or Andy Roddick or Marat Safin, among others, when the subject is raised.

“If we see a guy break a racket, someone will say to me, ‘Ah, yours was better,’” said Marcos Baghdatis, the 2006 runner-up in Melbourne.

“There are worse things. For me, it’s something that it’s fun to see. It’s good for tennis.”

Leconte is hardly the only one who wonders about what sort of example is being set for children who are watching, especially those who play tennis.

“It’s become all too commonplace. And it seems like other players see it happening and they think, ‘Oh, this is OK to do.’ I think it’s bad modeling, and the rackets are obviously expensive,” said Tracy Austin, the 1979 and 1981 U.S. Open champion.

Ernests Gulbis, a former top-10 player known for raising racket abuse to an art form, said he wishes he could avoid ever doing it again.

He also admits that’s not likely.

“Emotions just come out,” Gulbis said. “ I’m against it, personally, because you can fix your problems on court in a different way. But to be honest, sometimes it helps.”

That’s a popular take.

“It made me feel better,” Zverev said Monday. “I was very angry, so I let my anger out.”

Crowd reactions vary.

Fans are sometimes seen begging a player to hand over a messed-up racket as a keepsake. Yet when top-rannked Novak Djokovic shattered a frame by pounding it against the French Open’s red clay last year, spectators whistled and booed.

“I’m not proud of doing that, to be honest. I don’t like doing that,” he said. “But at times, it happens.”