Memories of Marcos Baghdatis, who is retiring at Wimbledon, were invoked during qualification at Roehampton on Wednesday afternoon.
After losing to Ruben Bemelmans 6-7(5), 6-3, 12-10, Akira Santillan walked briskly to a secluded spot on the vast fields of Roehampton. He proceeded to take out each of his five rackets one by one and methodically destroy them either on the ground or with his foot. Santillan smashed the first one in normal racket-breaking fashion, but on forgiving grass it took him six attempts to succeed. He thus resorted to stomping on the last four, essentially breaking them in half at the throat.
There were signs of a meltdown–perhaps not quite of those proportions–midway through the fifth set. The 22-year-old Australian incurred two unsportsmanlike conduct violations for incessant arguing with the chair umpire, the second of which earned a point penalty.
Baghdatis, of course, famously obliterated four rackets in one sitting during a match against Stan Wawrinka at the 2012 U.S. Open.
discuss.
Let the anger GO!!!!!!!
Nice of him to do this tribute for Marcos, but seriously, does he even have the money to be destroying racquets? I don’t think I’ve heard of him before.
Every time I think about smashing a racquet I think to myself “wait a second I only have one of these.”
Also I hear the company sponsors really enjoy it when you destroy their racquets! 😂
Toni Nadal to a very young Rafa: “You throw one racket and I’m no longer your coach. There are millions of kids in the world who would love a racket and don’t have one.”
Babolat says that Rafa did once break a racket, accidentally, when tapping it against his shoe. He sent the company a letter of apology. 🙂
I’d send him stringing rackets for a month, the measly brat!