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‘I don’t want to see machines on court’ – Boris Becker weighs in on ATP sanctions


Three-time Wimbledon Open Champion Boris Becker hopes that stricter punishments by the ATP on recent player outbursts do not lead to players hiding their true personalities. 

This season has seen numerous rage-fueled outbursts. Most recently at the ATP Houston Open where Australia’s Nick Kyrgios was given a point penalty after his second warning for foul language which ultimately cost him the match. He even continued his tirade towards the officials after the match, asking the umpire directly “Do you feel bad? I don’t think you feel bad.”

In light of the recent outbursts and the ATP’s response, the former World number one Boris Becker has stated that it is imperative tennis cannot be stripped of all its emotion otherwise the sport will lose its entertainment factor.

“I’m quite happy that we were allowed to play and ultimately go berserk under the exclusion of the social media and the microphones so to speak. It’s more difficult for the players today. Everything is extremely transparent, too transparent for my taste. And then the question is how does the tennis authority deal with it?”

He continued saying, “Tennis is also an entertainment sport. I don’t want to see computers and machines on the court either. Emotions are good, a bit of blood, sweat and tears, that stimulates, that was already the case with us. But everything has a limit.”

Players have also expressed their opinions and thoughts on ATP’s harsher punishments on players bad behaviour. World number 36 Alexander Bublik said that these types of sanctions will put players ”in cages”, whereas Norway’s Casper Ruud called for a stop to the ”reckless behaviour”.

However, the 54-year-old German believes that players should not be voicing their opinion on other players outbursts.

“What I don’t like at all is when other players criticise that. Everyone really has to stay within themselves and look in the mirror. We’re all not perfect, everyone freaks out sometimes and you just don’t do that. I also call the tennis players team-mates, so you really shouldn’t comment publicly on other people’s misconduct. I think it’s wrong. The penalties are there, they don’t need to be reinvented. The question is what has to happen for a player to really be punished for weeks?”

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