This week’s award for grossest act goes to the ATP Tour players

It’s one thing when a sport either ignores or is oblivious to whatever is surrounding a certain player or individual. It’s quite another when they know and just don’t care. Such is the case with this week’s announcement that the ATP Tour players had chosen Alexander Zverev to their players council.

To fill in, the players’ council is sort of the counterpart to those who run the ATP Tour, the group that speaks to the players’ interest and talks with the powers that be about changes the players might like to see.

And Zverev is facing domestic abuse charges in Germany, where he’s already been fined €450,000 and faced a penalty order that he is lodging an appeal against. Zverev denies the allegations from Brenda Patea, the mother of his daughter. This was the second time a former partner has accused Zverev of domestic abuse. In 2021, former girlfriend Olya Sharypova accused Zverev of repeated abuse, though she never filed charges anywhere, but told her story online. Zverev denied those allegations, too, and the ATP Tour found insufficient evidence to impose any penalties on him.

The thing is, the ATP has no official domestic abuse policy, which makes for pretty awkward viewing when considering this angle:

Making things a little worse is the second season of Break Point comes out this week, and Zverev gets his own episode. Are any of these charges or controversies mentioned? Of course not. The focus is on his return from a major ankle injury instead and also focuses on his rivalry with Danil Medvedev, whom Zverev doesn’t really hold back on trash-talking.

Though if you were the suspicious type, you might take this info of Medvedev’s wife being close friends with Sharypova as the source of Zverev’s antipathy towards him. Which his awkward references to Medvedev and his wife in public don’t really do a lot to dissuade.

All of this is happening as tennis at the top level may be totally reformed, further linking the women’s and men’s tour. Is Zverev going to be a major leadership figure in a combined tour? In the now, there’s little chance that Zverev’s fellow players wouldn’t have known about the multiple accusations of abuse that have been levied at him. It is possible that they could completely have their head in the sand, as pro tennis players live in a very unique bubble. But seeing as how Andy Murray and others pushed the ATP to launch an investigation, it clearly wasn’t a secret in the locker room. And they still put Zverev onto their council that speaks for them.

So yeah, here’s your award for grossness, ATP Tour players.

Torts takes out the blow torch

Now let’s watch John Tortorella completely torch a member of the Flyers media:

This was the aftermath of the Cutter Gauthier story, where Anthony SanFillipo hinted that a member of the Flyers organization had said that Kevin Hayes had basically persuaded Guathier to wave off the Flyers as a place to be employed. Clearly Torts didn’t agree.

And this from Steve Kerr . . .

Steve Kerr has apparently found his collection of Jesus And Mary Chain LPs:

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…

The heart of the Stephen A.-Whitlock feud

Stephen A. Smith and Jason Whitlock may spend this day in the headlines, but here’s everything you need to know:

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