Ryan Harrison gets warning for tossing racket, almost hitting ball boy (Video)
Tossing an object in frustration is a common occurrence in sports. It happens, and sometimes the objects people throw end up in an unintended spot. During his first-round match against France’s Gilles Simon at the French Open, Ryan Harrison became frustrated after failing to convert two set points on a serve. He wound up losing the game and flipped his racket backward. It happened to land near a ball boy, so Harrison was given a racket abuse warning. This did not please him.
“How is that racket abuse?” Harrison asked the chair according to Sports Illustrated’s Bryan A. Graham. “The racket slid. I don’t give a s***. That’s not racket abuse.”
As Busted Racquet pointed out, even the original bad boy of tennis John McEnroe said on the Tennis Channel that the warning was deserved whether he intended to throw it at someone or not — which he clearly did not. That being said, the racket didn’t slip. It wasn’t exactly as blatant as this toss from Andy Roddick, but the act was certainly done in frustration.
