Flach latest in penalty line
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from September 1990.
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Many prominent players have lost some substantial pocket money after letting their tempers boil over in the scorching New York heat.
Ken Flach, a five-time Grand Slam doubles champion and U.S. Davis Cup stalwart, was the latest loser - both on the court and in the bank account.
Flach stormed off court on Saturday during his mixed doubles match against Australian Laurie Warder and American Elise Burgin with he and his partner Patty Fendick trailing 4-2 in the third set. Flach and Fendick defaulted. Flach drew a total of 2,700 dollars in fines - 1,000 dollars for leaving the court, 1,000 dollars for defaulting the match and 700 dollars for two ball abuse infractions. As a result of the disqualification, Flach was also ruled out of the men's doubles competition where he and partner Robert Seguso had already reached the third round.
Twenty men's players, including fourth seed Andre Agassi and four-time Open champion John McEnroe, have been fined with one week still to go in the tournament.
Agassi drew a 3,000 dollar fine for his outburst, which included profane language and a spray of spit directed towards the chair umpire. McEnroe was fined 500 dollars for using his racket to put a hole in a courtside sign, bringing him within another 500 dollar fine of being automatically disqualified from the Australian Open, the next Grand Slam event.
Goran Ivanisevic, the 15th seed from Yugoslavia, escaped sanctions despite telling a news conference that he had quit trying and "tanked" the fifth set of his match against Australian Darren Cahill, in which he won only four points in going down 6-0.
Grand Slam supervisor Ken Farrar interviewed the 18-year-old Ivanisevic and issued a statement exonerating the Yugoslav of any wrong doing. "This is a young man who...speaks broken English and misconstrued the use of the term 'tank'.
"In my opinion, this was a mental letdown that led to a physical letdown in which he, consciously or unconsciously, was a beaten player. Accordingly, no disciplinary action was taken."
The gallery at Court 16, which had been captivated by the first two-and-a-half hours of the match, took their own action against Ivanisevic, booing the lanky lefthander's lacklustre play.
"The fifth set was a pretty gutless effort," said Cahill. "After the first game of the fifth set he just gave it to me."
