Gone are the days of Serena Williams and Heather Watson being handed hefty fines for smashing their rackets into Wimbledon’s pristine grass courts. This tournament so far is the first at SW19 since at least 1998 – when records began – when female players have avoided being hit with code violations.
In what could be one of the most well-behaved Wimbledons ever, only Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild has been fined over the last fortnight so far.
But Daniil Medvedev, the world No 5, was facing a penalty on Friday after an expletive-filled Centre Court outburst during his semi-final clash against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. The 28-year-old Russian was handed a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct after seemingly saying “fuck you” to the umpire, three times. His rant was broadcast on BBC One at about 2:20pm, hours before the 9pm watershed.
Seyboth Wild, the 24-year-old world No 74, was handed a $4,000 (£3,080) penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct on the second day of the tournament.
Four other male players, Terence Atmane, Tristan Boyer, Gustavo Heide and Denis Yevseyev, received fines for unsportsmanlike conduct during the qualifying competition in June. Switzerland’s Alexander Ritschard was also fined before the tournament began for “abuse of rackets and equipment”.
But no female players have been fined as yet in either the tournament or the qualifying competition this year, for the first time since recording of code violations began in 1998.
Over the years, some of the sport’s biggest stars have been fined for rocking the genteel atmosphere of the tournament.
Serena Williams was fined $10,000 (£7,710) in 2016 for smashing her racket into the grass court five times in her match-up against the American Christina McHale. The 23-time grand slam champion was fined again in 2019 for reportedly throwing her racket and damaging one of the grass courts in a pre-tournament practice session.
Nick Kyrgios, a so-called bad boy of the tennis circuit who is one of the BBC’s Wimbledon commentators, has racked up more than £450,000 in fines over his career. The 29-year-old was fined $10,000 (£7,710) for spitting towards a spectator and for calling a line judge a “snitch” at SW19 in 2022. Later in that tournament, he was fined a further $4,000 (£3,080) for saying the word “fucking” in front of Prince William, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, and their son George, who was eight at the time.
The former world No 9 Fabio Fognini was fined $3,000 (£2,310) in 2019 for saying he wished “a bomb would explode on this club” after organisers placed him on court 14, one of the smaller outdoor courts on the grounds.
Heather Watson was handed a $12,000 (£9,250) fine for jamming her racket into the grass after her first-round loss to Annika Beck in 2016. The former British No 2 was handed the second-largest single fine in Wimbledon history at the time.
In the first week of Wimbledon last year, not including the qualifying rounds, there were four fines from male singles players totalling $13,500 (£10,400), including offences of audible obscenity and abuse of rackets and equipment, according to the All England Club.
For the same period in 2022, players committed 15 offences, totalling $61,500 (£47,350). Kyrgios and Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas were each handed $10,000 fines for unsportsmanlike conduct.
