PARIS — Adolfo Daniel Vallejo has been fined $65,000 at the French Open after saying the second-round referee should not have been a woman, organizers announced Monday.
Vallejo lost to French teenager Moises Kouame last week in a tense five-set battle that lasted nearly five hours. He later told tennis website Clay that “this kind of match needs a male referee.”
“It’s very difficult for women,” Vallejo added after losing 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6 (8).
Players who advance to the second round of the French Open will receive 130,000 euros (approximately $151,000). Roland Garros director Amelie Mauresmo told reporters at the French Open that the player had been fined 65,000 euros, “roughly half of his prize money.” Organizers later clarified that the fine was paid in dollars, not euros.
“This is clearly unacceptable,” Mauresmo said. “Again, such statements have no place here.”
Vallejo, who is from Paraguay, said referee Ana Carvalho, who is from Brazil, did not control the crowd.
“It has to be a male referee, because it’s a very demanding crowd and it takes a lot of strength to go against the crowd,” he said. “The crowd was pretty insane, but I understand they were rooting for their compatriot. It was a pretty intense crowd, so I was prepared. I knew this was going to happen. To be honest, it didn’t hurt me, it actually strengthened him.”
Vallejo added that Kouame “spent a lot of time lying on the floor and stalling.”
“And it’s not normal for the crowd to scream for a whole minute when there’s no play. In a very physical game, if you give the players a lot of time, obviously they’re going to take advantage of it. It’s also true that it’s difficult for the referees to manage this situation.”
