Bleeding on the tennis court is not something you see often, but Adrian Mannarino made it so in a recent meltdown at the 2024 United Cup.
Tennis is a non-contact sport which generally ensures that fans rarely see any blood. From time to time, players might slip and scrape their knees or do something similar, but most of them know how to fall.
Bleeding does happen, though, as we've seen it recently at the ATP Finals. A very frustrated Andrey Rublev cracked open his knee after hitting himself repeatedly with the racket.
We've gotten used to it from Rublev, but now another player did something similar. Mikhail Youzhny patented this outburst years ago when he hit himself in the head with the racquet, and Adrian Mannarino has done the same now.
He's not known as a player who has many demonstrative outbursts, but in recent years, we've seen him show more frustration than usual on a tennis court. During a United Cup match against Lorenzo Sonego, Mannarino hit himself in the head a few times with the racket handle out of frustration, causing him to bleed.
It wasn't a particularly pretty sight, and play had to be stopped so that he could receive treatment for it, but it was a pretty decent ode to Youzhny, as Tennis TV pointed out on X.
The most interesting part of that story is that Mannarino actually won the match, which makes this outburst rather unnecessary, even though it seems like the necessary treatment broke his opponent's rhythm.
Frustrations seem to be growing among players as we are seeing more and more of these outbursts, but they were always there. John McEnroe ranted decades ago, Marat Safin certainly has a legacy, as do some other players.
It's nothing new and will likely continue to happen in the future, hopefully not like this. Check out the moment Mannarino literally bled for tennis.
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