'Disrespectful': Tennis player explodes at rival's 'stupid' father

Corentin Moutet has sprayed Stefanos Tsitsipas and his father in an angry verbal exchange at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS).

Players are allowed to show more emotions at the UTS than normally allowed on Tour, and Frenchman Moutet didn’t hold back during his match against Tsitsipas on Sunday.

Matches at the UTS, co-owned by Patrick Mouratoglou, the long-time coach of Serena Williams, consist of four 10-minute quarters with a two-minute break between them, and the player with most points wins the quarter.

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Moutet, ranked 75th in the world, saw a 2-0 lead in the match slip and lost his cool in the fourth quarter, accusing his opponent's father and coach Apostolos of being disrespectful by talking when he was getting ready to serve.

The players got into a heated on-court discussion as Apostolos watched on before the umpire intervened and asked the players to resume play.

“I won't speak about Stefanos, because he’s a good guy. But it's just (his) father is stupid, everyone thinks he's stupid,” Moutet told commentators during the break.

“He's speaking when I'm serving, all the time. It's not respectful.”

Tsitsipas fires back at Moutet

The argument did not seem to have bothered Tsitsipas too much as he squared the match at 2-2 and then won it in sudden death.

“I had experience with this in the past. I don't want to say more, but I don't see why there should be a problem,” said World No.6 Tsitsipas.

“My father is trying to encourage me before the serve and he's not really interrupting. My opponent makes a big deal out of it.”

Tsitsipas, Richard Gasquet, Matteo Berrettini, and David Goffin have booked their spots in the semi-finals of the tournament, which is being held without fans at Mouratoglou's academy in Nice, France.

World No.3 Dominic Thiem was the highest-ranked player at the tournament before the Austrian headed off to play in the exhibition event he is organising in Kitzbuhel.

ATP unveils new revised rankings system

Meanwhile, the ATP has unveiled a revised system for calculating the men's world rankings when the tennis season resumes in August following a five-month stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rankings, a determining factor in a players' ability to enter events and receive seedings, traditionally operate on a "Best 18" results basis over 52 weeks but will now cover a 22-month period from March 2019 through December 2020.

International tennis ground to a halt in mid-March, with Wimbledon being cancelled and the French Open being moved to September, and rankings were frozen.

The men's Tour will resume on August 14 with the Citi Open, ATP 500 event in Washington, DC.

Among the key elements of the revised system, a player's ranking will now be comprised of his "Best 18" results over the 22-month period. A player cannot count the same tournament twice in his breakdown.

The ATP tour also said tour-level tournament points added in 2020 that count in a player's ranking breakdown will remain on a player's ranking for 52 weeks, or until the event in question is played again in 2021, whichever comes first.

“The temporary changes to the rankings system have been made in consultation with the four Grand Slam tournaments and the ITF,” the ATP said in a news release.

“Should the 2021 season be impacted by COVID-19, further adjustments to rankings will be considered.”

with AAP