Tennis bad boy Corentin Moutet, who was fined more than £30,000 for dropping the F-bomb SEVEN times during an on-court BBC interview at Queen’s, got himself into hot water once again after smashing his racquet during his first-round match at Wimbledon.
The furious Frenchman overhit a lob to lose the third set against American Marcos Giron and responded by trying to break his racquet over his knee, twice failing to do so but finally getting it to snap on the third attempt.
Moutet then handed its remains to a boy watching on from the side of Court 9 as a gift, sparking applause from the onlooking spectators, before receiving a code violation from the umpire.
The 27-year-old earlier apologised after he struck an elderly spectator with a wayward serve during the second set.
‘Got me right on the shoulder,’ the lady told Daily Mail Sport as she left the courtside benches after the second set.
The maverick Moutet, who has ‘chaos makes the muse’ tattooed on the back of his neck, was causing his usual stir on the outside courts at the All England Club, with his full array of drop shots and underarm serves.
Tennis bad boy Corentin Moutet snapped his racket in a fit of rage at Wimbledon on Tuesday
A small army of French fans frequently chanted ‘Allez, allez, allez, Moutet, Moutet, Moutet’ in support of their countryman.
Despite taking the opening set, Moutet’s emotions got the better of him as usual as he complained about multiple line calls. ‘That’s insane,’ he shouted at the umpire after one of Giron’s shots was called in.
Later he bellowed obscenities in his native tongue in frustration while also lambasting himself for playing too many drop shots.
His latest antics come just weeks after Moutet caused controversy at Queen’s when he dropped seven F-bombs live on the BBC after his round of 32 victory over compatriot Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, leading him to be fined $40,000 (£30,325) – almost his entire tournament prize money.
During his on-court interview with reporter Jenny Drummond, Moutet let his first f*** slip when referencing Mpetshi-Perricard’s huge serve.
‘I had a match point, I was on the second serve, and then he hits me 142 kph. I was like, f***, I would have to serve and I would have to…,’ said Moutet before pausing after the crowd murmured at the swearing.
‘No F-bombs,’ Drummond interjected, prompting Moutet to blurt: ‘F***, f***, f***’.
‘No, no, no,’ Drummond responded. ‘Apologies, everyone, for the language there. Right, Corentin. I’m going to ask you one more question. So please keep it clean, OK?’ You on the grass last week, unfortunately, it didn’t go your way. What’s it like to get your first victory?’
Unperturbed, Moutet went on, with a grin: ‘F***, f***, f***’ prompting Drummond to end the interview. ‘OK, Corentin, we need to improve that for the next round,’ she said. ‘Apologies, everyone. Corentin Moutet.’
Moutet’s emotions got the better of him as usual as he complained about multiple line calls
The Frenchman, 27, then handed the remains of the racket to a boy in the crowd on Court 9
Clare Balding apologised in the BBC studio while Annabel Croft branded his outburst ‘appalling’.
It was by no means the first time Moutet has shown himself to be the new bad boy of tennis.
Even at Queen’s last year, he suffered yet another meltdown against Brit Jacob Fearnley, throwing his racquet, blasting a ball into the crowd and calling the umpire ‘crazy’ after being hit with three code violations in a hot-tempered defeat.
Three months earlier, he had to be separated by the umpire from Alexander Bublik after Moutet’s opponent offered him outside for a fight.
Moutet had been heard to shout ‘I’m not ready’ as Bublik prepared to take a quick serve, only for the Russian-Kazakhstani star to respond: ‘I don’t give a s***.’
After the match, the two got into another war of words with footage showing Bublik asking: ‘You want to fight? The French kid is speaking & he doesn’t want to fight. ‘Let’s go. We meet in 10 minutes outside.’
Moutet defaulted from a match in Adelaide four years ago after he said ‘f*** you’ to an umpire. He was even stripped of French Tennis Federation funding that same year when he got into an on-court shoving match with opponent Adrian Andreev.
Moutet has a habit of getting on his opponent’s bad side. He claimed he was given a death threat at the net by Pavel Kotov during their first-round match of a Challenger event in May last year.
In a hastily-deleted social media post, Moutet claimed Kotov had told him: ‘Next time you come to the net, I’ll kill you. One day, someone will kill you.’
Former Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins claimed that Moutet had tried to flirt with her, which prompted him to issue a furious denial and attack the television network that aired her comments.
Tennis Channel’s Steve Weissman described an interaction between the two of them at a practice session.
‘He was shouting at you, he was cat calling you,’ Weissman said to Collins, who picked up the story.
‘I basically said to him,’ she began, ‘If you’re going to be flirting with me like that, you’re going to have to get a bigger serve.’
Collins went on to claim that Moutet unfollowed her on social media after it was revealed in a dating profile that she isn’t interested in ‘short kings.’ Moutet, who is scheduled to face world No. 2 Jannik Sinner in the Round of 32, is listed at 5ft11.
‘You have to understand that I’m 5ft 10in, and for me, right, it’s fair,’ 5ft 10in Collins said. ‘It’s just a preference. Nothing against the short kings. But he was upset about that and messaged me and then unfollowed me. He slid back into the DMs last night asking me if I saw his match and all the big serves that he was hitting.’
Moutet hit back on social media: ‘Tennis Channel how can you let someone say BS like this on tv,’ Moutet blasted on X.
