Corentin Moutet, French tennis player who recently reached his career highest rank at World No. 30 in April, may have got into trouble for a crude humour joke he made at London with a BBC reporter during Queen's Club championship, after defeating Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 on Tuesday.
Moutet, now ranked 36th, was asked by the reporter about his opponent's powerful serve used in a match point, and he spoke unfiltered. "When I had the match point, I thought: 'It's the second serve, you get in the middle and just return the ball,' and he hit me an ace at 228 km/h and I thought: 'Fuck, I'm going to have to serve."
Politely, the reporter, Jenny Drummond, asked him "no f-words, please", and Moutet immediately responded "f*ck, f*ck, f*ck", causing the spectators to laugh. The reporter responded "no, no, no!, sorry everyone for the language", and asked him another question. Instead of answering, the 27-year-old said the f-word three more times, causing Drummond to abandon the interview.
When coming back to the studio, BBC presenter Claire Balding apologised again for viewers. "Corentin Moutet living up to his bad-boy image. 'Chaos makes the muses' is what he wrote on the camera screen there. It's a tattoo that he has as well. And, yes, chaos is what he can create."
According to RMC Sport, Moutet's embarrassing actions, which caused laughter in the audience, could cost him a monetary fine. ATP hasn't announced anything yet, but it would be as a deduction from the £33,000, €38,000 he won with the victory.
Moutet will next face fourth seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in round of 16 on Thursday.
