13th March, 2012
Michael Llodra was slapped with a $2,500 fine for using a racial slur during his opening round match against Ernests Gulbis at the ATP Tour’s Indian Wells tournament, officials said.
The French player yelled at a Chinese female supporter of Gulbis during his 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7/3) win over the Latvian last Friday.
The incident was witnessed by Canadian journalist Tom Tebbutt who wrote about it on his social networking Twitter site.
“Sat very first row — dead centre behind the court for Llodra-Gulbis — heard a lot. Deplorable behaviour by Llodra — read next tweet.
“ML smacked ball out of court, threw racquet, called female Gulbis supporter in crowd a ‘bleeping Chinese.’ I confirmed later with brother of woman.”
Officials said Llodra was also verbally abusive towards the ballkids and their coordinator during the match. Besides the fine, Llodra had to apologise for his actions.
Llodra and his doubles partner Nenad Zimonjic reached the finals of back-to-back tournaments in China last year, winning the doubles in Beijing and finishing as runners up in Shanghai.
Llodra withdrew from his second-round match against fellow Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the first set on Sunday because of a knee injury.
—Taiwo Adelu