Australian Open star booed for ruthlessly taking advantage of opponent’s injury

Corentin Moutet was  fiercely booed by the crowd on hand after he defeated an injured Alexei Popyrin at the Australian Open.

After winning the first set against World No. 69 Moutet, Australia’s Popyrin suffered an injury to his left glute and also had a hamstring issue midway through the second set. With the 25-year-old battling numerous injuries, Moutet took advantage of the situation.

Popyrin battled, but there was just too much to overcome for the Australian, falling to Moutet 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. And while Moutet advanced, fans in attendance made their thoughts known on the French star’s antics and the fact that he won in a fashion that seemed unsportsmanlike. 

Upon seeing Popyrin hindered by his injuries, Moutet deployed numerous drop-shots to test the 25-year-old. At one point, the Frenchman pointed to his head to show that he was not playing dirty, but rather he was using his mind by taking advantage of the situation.

Some fans on social media were less than pleased with how Moutet acted and played against Popyrin. “Moutet is a prime example of bad sportsmanship. You don’t try to win over a crowd by clowning an injured Popyrin,” a commenter posted on X.

“Moutet is a bit of a fool doing dumb things while playing an injured player,” commented another fan. After the match, Popyrin went into detail on the injury he sustained in the second set and described just how much he was hindered by his glute injury against Moutet. 

“I ran to a drop shot, felt a pull — a sharp pain in my glute, like lower backside glute,” he said, per ABC. “I have had it before, and I knew what it was. It was really painful for me to push off my left leg and land on my left leg and do running forehands and stuff.

“It’s something that I knew, I think it couldn’t get worse, but yeah, I just had to dig deep and play through the pain.”

With how his outing in the Australian Open ended, Popyrin admitted he would take time off to reflect on what he could do better in future events along with recovering. 

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“I’m going to have to take a few days, a week off, let it all sink in,” he continued. “It’s been a very disappointing month for me, come to Australia off the back of your best year, lose two matches is not something I kind of expected.

“We’re going to have to take a step back, look at what went wrong, and just work from there. I haven’t been in this position before, so I don’t really know what I have to do, but it’s all part of the experience.”

In the end, Popyrin believes his injury would sideline him for a handful of weeks if the recovery process goes as intended. “It’s something you can play through, so it’s just I have to decide whether or not I want to play through it and risk it getting worse or not,” he said.