[imagesource: YouTube / Topspinz]

On Wednesday, Canadian Vasek Pospisil took on American McKenzie McDonald at the Miami Open.

There’s nothing really newsworthy about that, but then Pospisil totally lost his rag, with some racquet smashing and swearing at chair umpire Arnaud Gabas, so here we are.

What sets this apart from other recent on-court meltdowns (Novak Djokovic and some Italian warfare, for example) is that the target of his ire wasn’t really Gabas, or McDonald, but rather ATP president Andrea Gaudenzi.

We will get to that in a second, but let’s watch the footage first.

Pospisil’s language takes a turn from around the 2:40 mark:

You have to admire McDonald, just sipping on his drink and making sure he goes nowhere near this battle.

I think the most surprising thing here is that in a match between an American and a Canadian, it’s the Canadian that is threatening to sue.

Pospisil’s ire at the ATP Tour, and its president, in particular, stems from a meeting between players and Gaudenzi on Tuesday night.

Here’s The Telegraph:

The outburst came after several days of meetings had failed to produce a united platform from which the players could challenge the ATP leadership. There have been gripes aplenty — about everything from prize money in Miami, which is down by 60 per cent, to the frozen rankings system and the protocols within the tournaments’ various bio-bubbles…

Unfortunately, as the former ATP chairman Etienne de Villiers said this week, “Everyone distrusts everyone else. To use a very eloquent Wordsworthian expression, it’s a ratf—.”

Telegraph Sport understands Gaudenzi made this very point to Pospisil when the two men met at a players’ meeting on the basketball court in Miami on Tuesday night…

Pospisil, who leads a dissenting and dissatisfied group of professional tennis players, presented Gaudenzi with a list of gripes, but the president didn’t back down, and asked for solutions rather than problems.

Or, to put it another way:

As for the meeting itself, the Open Court website reported: “Gaudenzi and company really went after him [Pospisil]. They called him things like ‘ignorant’, ‘uneducated’ – lovely stuff like that.”

Open Court reporter Stephanie Myles added that Pospisil was reportedly in tears afterwards and was still “shaken up” when he went on court.

There is a dark cloud hanging over the sport at the moment, and exchanges like this will do little to mend the relationship between the players and the governing body.

Both Djokovic and Pospisil left the ATP player council last August, starting the rival players’ organisation, the PTPA, and it appears as though the sport’s bigwigs are less than impressed.

After the match, Pospisil issued an apology, and explanation, via Twitter:

I underestimated the toll those emotions took on me until I stepped onto the court today. Again, I am sorry for my on-court behavior and the language I used. #players [2/2]

— Vasek Pospisil (@VasekPospisil) March 25, 2021

At the very least, it made for decent viewing.

[source:telegraph]