The clips from the French television broadcast of Wawrinka vs. Federer have made it onto the Internet, and have shed a lot more light on “the” incident between Wawrinka and Federer’s wife Mirka during the World Tour Finals Saturday.
La femme de Roger Federer a bien perturbé Wawrinka by beINSPORTS
“I didn’t hear it, Stan” Mourier says.
“Do you know why? Because I wasn’t on her side (of the court). There you go. She did the same thing at Wimbledon,” Wawrinka replied. “She did the same thing at Wimbledon.
“Every time I’m on her side, she yells before I serve. It’s insupportable.”
(In French, “insupportable” can mean anything from intolerable, to unbearable, to merely a “pain in the butt”.
He may have meant, “before I return serve”, because that’s what was aggravating Wawrinka late in the third set. With legs weary and nerves frazzled, it escalated, and it certainly seems as though Mrs. Fed called Wawrinka a “cry baby” when he turned to her before Federer’s second serve and said, “Not before the serve.”
It’s true that if Federer’s serving and Wawrinka is on Mrs Fed’s side of the court and says something, it will bother him more than her husband, 100 feet away.
Longtime former umpire Richard Ings suggested on Twitter than when this sort of thing happens in the players’ boxes, the best way to immediately nip it in the bud is to have a supervisor sit right nearby. That usually takes care of any issue, he wrote.
Mourier obviously didn’t do this when the subject first came up. Or perhaps because he didn’t hear it, he didn’t feel the situation merited it.
It’s all heat-of-the-moment stuff, of course. But according to Wawrinka, it’s not a one-off. It’s a pattern.
Meanwhile, back in the present tense, the Swiss Davis Cup team is scheduled to hold its press conference at 4:45 p.m. there (10:45 a.m. EST). Federer is reported to be there, but also reported not to be practicing today.
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