Corentin Moutet, the French tennis maverick, has been fined $40,000 (£30,000) after swearing seven times in quick succession on the BBC’s live coverage of Queen’s.
The incident took place on Tuesday, after Moutet had won his opening match at the HSBC Championships, but before he was eliminated by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Thursday.
The fine was levied under the heading of “unsportsmanlike conduct”, and an ATP statement cited “profane language”.
The statement also said that Moutet is appealing the decision. Should his appeal fail, his Queen’s prize money of €37,780 (£33,000) will largely be wiped out.
Known for his tempestuous character and quirky game, Moutet, 27, came across like a cheeky schoolboy as he kept dropping the F-word in his on-court interview after defeating compatriot Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in a lengthy three-setter.
The first use of the obscenity was not intended to ruffle anyone’s feathers, but simply slipped out in the course of an answer about Mpetshi Perricard’s famously lethal serve.
“I had a match point, I was on the second serve,” Moutet said, “and then he hits me 142 [kph]. I was like, f—, I would have to serve and I would have to…”
The Queen’s crowd rippled in surprise at the swear word, prompting Moutet to pause for an instant, and allow Jenny Drummond, the on-court interviewer, to interject with “No F-bombs, please.”
The conversation then degenerated quickly as Moutet, apparently thinking he was being hilariously funny, replied with three more uses of the F-word.
Keeping her cool, Drummond gave Moutet a chance to regroup as she said “No, no, no. Apologies, everyone, for the language there. Right, Corentin. I’m going to ask you one more question. So please keep it clean, OK?
“You on the grass last week, unfortunately, it didn’t go your way. What’s it like to get your first victory?”
But the unrepentant Frenchman was not to be persuaded, reeling off three more swear words with the air of a child thumbing its nose. An exasperated Drummond ended the interview with the words: “OK, Corentin, we need to improve that for the next round. Apologies, everyone. Corentin Moutet.”
Back in the BBC TV studio, Clare Balding also tried to smooth over the incident. “And just to repeat those apologies for everyone watching BBC Two and iPlayer,” Balding said. “Corentin Moutet living up to his bad-boy image. ‘Chaos makes the muse’ 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.”
The BBC pundits were united in their condemnation, with Annabel Croft describing Moutet’s behaviour as “appalling” while Andrew Castle used the words “disrespectful” and “incredibly rude”.
Moutet is understood to have apologised in person to Drummond and the BBC team after the event. However, he has form for this sort of thing, even at Queen’s, where he landed himself in hot water last summer by appearing to call Adel Nour, the chair umpire, a “f—ing t—”.
Before that, Moutet was defaulted from a match in Adelaide in 2022 for saying “f— you” to an umpire. In another incident in the same season, he lost his funding from the French Tennis Federation after he and his opponent Adrian Andreev started pushing each other on the court.
In the spring of 2025, he and another quirky player – Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik – had to be separated by an official after arguing over whether Moutet was ready to serve or not. And then, in March this year, Moutet was fined for pulling his shorts down during a match in Hamburg. He is, to put it mildly, a repeat offender.