Maria Sharapova came under fire for her rather curt responses to journalists at the Australian Open, but at least she never suffered a tantrum like world number four, Alex Zverev.

There’s just something about an on-court meltdown that’s enjoyable to watch from a distance (see here, here and here), and Zverev’s was up there with the best of them.

The 21-year-old German suffered a humiliating straight sets loss to Milos Raonic in front of a packed crowd at the Rod Laver Arena, but it was his behaviour after going 5-1 down in the second set that grabbed headlines.

It’s safe to say that racquet is now deceased:

In his post-match press conference, he had calmed down a little, although he wasn’t playing entirely nice with the gathered journalists.

Below from NewsAU:

The dejected star was particularly blunt when a reporter questioned if racquet abuse was something he did on a regular bases.

“Have you never watched my matches?” he jabbed.

“You should watch my matches.”

From the 50-second mark below, you can see that exchange:

You know you’ve done well when John McEnroe is impressed with your outburst:

McEnroe was left impressed by the scale of Zverev’s blow-up, but he appeared seriously concerned for the star’s headspace during his disastrous run of losing eight straight games.

“That’s crazy. That’s like twilight zone stuff.”

Also widely shared was the mix-up before the fourth-round match between Serena Williams and Simona Halep, when Williams accidentally strolled out whilst Halep was being announced:

”Please welcome world no.1..”
*Serena enters*
”Oh wait”
pic.twitter.com/VmNHwVb90z

— SimoReactions (@Simoreactions) January 21, 2019

Williams went on to win, naturally.

Finally, there’s Pablo Carreno Busta, who didn’t take his loss to Kei Nishikori very well. He became furious after a call went against him in the deciding tie-break, and stormed off with some choice words in the direction of the umpire:

The Australian Open continues, and you can follow the latest scores here.

[source:newsau]