Alan Jones, a leading tennis coach, has told The Tennis Space that David Nalbandian made matters much worse at Queen’s Club with his whinge about the ATP Tour. Nalbandian was defaulted for kicking an advertising hoarding, which then broke and injured a line-judge, and the Argentine was then heavily critical of the ATP Tour. “For him to have an attack on the ATP, when he’s out there earning a fortune, that’s not right. There will be people out there, in this difficult financial climate, who will tell him he should be grateful he’s a tennis player.”
Jones, who once coached Jo Durie and Elena Baltacha, on Nalandian’s behaviour at Queen’s: “Absolutely Nalbandian should have been defaulted. He knows the rules. Everyone who plays has to be accountable – you can’t inflict any violence or damage on ball kids, spectators, umpire, linesmen, whoever. He was unlucky that the hoarding broke, but clearly he broke the rules. And for him to have an attack on the ATP, when he’s out there earning a fortune, that’s not right. There will be people out there, in this difficult financial climate, who will tell him that he should be grateful he’s a tennis player.”
Jones on Novak Djokovic, who smacked his racket against his bench during the French Open final: “Djokovic didn’t set a great example in Paris either, breaking things when the match wasn’t going his way. I understand that there was a lot of money at stake, and points, and a lot of emotion, but was that acceptable behaviour?”