BBC presenter Clare Balding was left stunned after French tennis player Corentin Moutet swore seven times during a chaotic post-match interview. Moutet punched his ticket into the second round at Queen's with a hard-fought win over fellow Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.
With the match suspended on Monday due to bad light, Moutet was forced to return on Tuesday to wrap up a 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Perricard in a lengthy encounter that lasted almost three hours. A relieved Moutet was full of praise for his opponent, telling the BBC after his win: 'The guy's been incredible, you know.'
'He's an amazing player. It was so much pressure because every point is very important. Because he's serving that good that he put so much pressure on my service game. I'm so happy to make it today. It's been a long two months, so I'm happy to get a win here. Thanks to all of you for coming both days and I'm very happy to get the win here today.'
Perricard has one of the fiercest serves on tour, and broke the record for the fastest serve at Wimbledon during last year's tournament. And Moutet let his emotions get the better of him when asked how difficult a challenge it was to return his opponent's serve during their three-set encounter.
'That's so frustrating,' he said of Perricard's serve. 'When I had a match point, I was on the second serve, thinking: Okay, he hit me in the middle. Whatever you do, you just put the ball in the court. And then he hits me with a 142 mph serve and I was like, f***, I will have to serve out (for the match).'
On-court interviewer Jenny Drummond was quick to apologise for Moutet's bad language, but the Frenchman did not seem to pay much attention when the microphone was handed back to him. 'F***, f***, f***,' he jokingly responded. And when asked one final question about his victory, the Frenchman again responded: 'F***, f***, f***.'
The coverage quickly cut back to a somewhat bewildered Balding who added her apologies for the foul language. 'Corentin Moutet living up to his bad boy image,' she said. 'Chaos makes the news is what he wrote on the camera screen there. It's a tattoo that he has as well. And, yep, chaos is what he can create.'
Moutet will now play either Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Britain's Cam Norrie in the next round.
