Spanish tennis player Mario Vilella Martinez has been ridiculed on social media for his insane racket-smashing meltdown, which was sarcastically dubbed ‘tennis tantrum of the year’, at an ATP Challenger event in Kazakhstan.
The world number 262 attracted much public attention after a video of him destroying his tennis racket during the match went viral, with many sports fans admitting this was one of the craziest racket smashes they had ever seen.
The Spaniard exploded after suffering a three set defeat (1-6, 6-2, 7-5) to Bosnia's Tomislav Brkic at the Shymkent II Challenger event on Monday.
"Is he cultivating the clay ground for vegetable planting?" one user asked.
"Did he kill a fly?" another person added.
Infuriated by his loss, Martinez launched into a huge tantrum, bashing his racket into the clay five times before hurling it out of the court.
The player's behavior didn’t go unnoticed by tennis fans, who immediately started ridiculing the Spaniard’s hysterical outburst making comparisons with the notoriously hot-tempered Australian ace, Nick Kyrgios.
Australian sports journalist and media personality Tim Watson joked that the player’s eccentric racket-waving resembled a tough fight against bull ants.
"I wasn’t sure it was a tantrum, I thought he was in a nest of bull ants," he tweeted.
While the fans are enjoying laughing at Martinez's expense, it has not yet been confirmed what sanctions the player will face for his on-court behavior.