Tempers were running high today during early-round action at the Washington Open in D.C.—dangerously high, if you happen to be a tennis racket. In a weird match that saw eventual victor Marcos Baghdatis get rattled by a distracting trash cart, notorious hothead Benoit Paire one-upped his opponent’s lack of mental toughness as he stared into the face of his own failures.
After losing a crucial game by falling on his butt while trying to make a routine shot, Paire smashed one racket from his position on the ground, then walked over to his bench and wrecked another racket—an innocent one that didn’t even lose him the point. Paire then went down 40-0 and refused to play Baghdatis’s match point serve, handing him the win in shameful fashion.
It would have been a lot cheaper to just quit before destroying any rackets.