Moutet explained the scandal with a tabil in the Miami Open: “I never insulted or missed respect for anyone”

The French Corentin Moutet (76 ° of the ATP) broke the silence after the controversial episode with the Chilean Alejandro Tabilo (31 °) in the Miami Open and issued an extensive statement to explain his point of view.

What was a normal match until the second set became a controversy when French, After exuberantly celebrating the mistakes of your rival He faced hostile reactions of the public and controversial decisions of the judges. Sanctioned with a penalty point that made him lose the set for refusing to playMoutet continued to protest at the beginning of the third set, which resulted in more penalties.

After the stir, Moutet issued a statement in his Instagram stories to explain his version of the facts.

I see that many people are talking about my party against Tabilo. I decided to explain, once and for all, what really happened, and then I will leave this event behind.

From the first moment, the public was hostile: voluntary noise between my services, whistles, insults, provocative gestures … Those who saw the game will be able to testify that I did not respond for 1 hour and a half, I only concentrated on playing and returning to the scoreboard. But as the game advanced, the atmosphere became increasingly aggressive. After two hours of play, without any intervention of the referee to calm the crowd, I reacted by raising his arms three times to incite the public to make even more noise. At that time, a person made me an obscene gesture (finger of honor).

I felt that this exceeded the limits of what an athlete should accept on a court. So I asked the referee to expel that person before resuming the game. Instead of listening to me, he ordered me to continue playing, refusing to intervene. Then, I asked to talk to the supervisor, claiming that I would not retract as long as this person remained in the gallery.

Result: the referee decided to sanction me and gave me the set for lost. When the supervisor arrived, I explained the situation. He left, then returned by saying that someone (from whom he refused to reveal the identity) said that I had been the finger of honor. Then, he decided to penalize me again, taking away a game at the beginning of the third set, thus offering an immediate advantage to my opponent.

From this event, I have received many criticisms and insults. To say that they do not affect me would be a lie. I have always given my best in my profession, inverted a tremendous amount of effort and made innumerable sacrifices to reach my goals. I have learned to accept suffering as part of the way, but I refuse to believe that being a public person always means having to be wrong and deserve the hatred of others.

I want to clarify that I never insulted or missed anyone during this game. Apart from having raised their arms three times to incite the public to make noise, I had no inappropriate or disrespectful words or gestures.

What saddens me is to see that, when someone is fallen, the first reaction of many – including people from my own country or who saw the game – is to push it even deeper instead of supporting it in the Calvary for which it is happening.

I hope that one day ATP better protects players, avoiding as far as possible we will find in this type of situation. That we have fewer five -digit fines and more security, either on a tennis court or on social networks.

I just needed to tell the truth.

All Miami Open activity can be followed live by Disney+.