PARIS – The Roland Garros tournament has stripped Paraguayan Daniel Vallejo of half the prize money he won for reaching the second round, claiming that his comments about female chair umpires, made in an interview with CLAY, are ‘unacceptable’.
‘It has been decided to impose a fine of €65,000, approximately half of his prize money,’ said Amelie Mauresmo, the tournament director, on Monday.
‘It is clearly unacceptable to us, to the tournament and to the Federation, even beyond the tournament. Comments of this kind have no place here,’ added the former world number one.
Vallejo lost on Thursday in five sets and five hours to French prodigy Moise Kouame, and after his press conference he spoke for a few minutes alone with CLAY.
“Matches like this have to be umpired by a man; it’s very difficult for a woman to do it,” said Vallejo after his defeat 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6 and 7-6 (10-8) to Kouame, aged 17 and ranked 317 in the world, in the second round of the tournament.
Do you really believe that a woman cannot referee this type of match? Vallejo insisted that the Brazilian Ana Carvalho was not the right person for a match like the one on Thursday in Paris.
“It has to be refereed by a man, because the crowd is very hostile and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd,” insisted the Paraguayan.
The Roland Garros organisers confirmed to CLAY that the decision was taken jointly by the tournament and the French Tennis Federation (FFT), but were unable to explain, beyond describing Vallejo’s comments as “unacceptable”, whether any specific tournament or FFT regulations, or any French law, had also been applied to justify the sanction against the Paraguayan.
