Tennis News: Ball boy slams Novak Djokovic and Paula Badosa rips publication

One might need to take this with a pinch of proverbial salt as the original details of the events were published on Reddit and by an unnamed ball boy who worked at Indian Wells for over three years. Did the person really have the first-hand information they claim to have? There is no reason not to believe they do, but the source is always a little questionable while the details were also reported by the Italian website, Fanpage.

The reason I point out all of the above is so one can choose to believe the ball boy or not. There is a chance that some of the experiences they claimed to have might change your opinion about a certain player or five. But if they are correct, some of the rudest players in how they treat ball boys and girls are some of the best players in tennis, one of them being Novak Djokovic.

About Djokovic, the ball boy said that he "gets impatient when he loses and sometimes lashes out at the ball boys, but usually he does it at the umpires." While this is not a way for an adult to treat ball kids, things could be worse than Djokovic. Alexander Zverev, for instance, appears to have a bad reputation.

Ball boys talks about Novak Djokovic and Paula Badosa might want proof

According to the ball boy, "The worst was Zverev, who yelled at me for giving him the wrong ball even though they all looked the same. He was losing...(Cam) Norrie and Zverev both yelled at a boy with Down syndrome."

Not all was bad, however. Coco Gauff was apparently quite nice. The ball boy said, "The best is Coco Gauff, she asked us to make a TikTok with her, but they were so bad that she never published them. The nicest and kindest are Stan Wawrinka, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Alex De Minaur, Maria Sakkari, Coco Gauff, Emma Navarro, Rafael Nadal, Casper Ruud, Emil Ruusuvuori, Ons Jabeur, Matteo Berrettini, Hubert Hurkacz, Ugo Humbert, and Gael Monfils."

Not nice, at least in Paula Badosa's opinion, was how she was treated by Spanish publication Deportes Cuatro. After the Spanish player was bounced out of the Charleston Open early in the event, the publication posted a photo of Badosa on X/Twitter which translated read, "Paula Badosa does not raise her head: she falls decisively in Charleston and flirts with leaving the top 100."

The raising her head part is weird. Maybe they meant Badsa does not raise her game? Either way, that is probably the part that Badosa had an issue with.

Badosa responded on X to the post, however, saying, "It seems too much to me to still be in the top 100 without competing for 10 months. And finally, please put a photo of me on the cover...Regrettable." One can assume the publication had an article about her but did not include a photo of the player along with it. Maybe the player simply wanted proof she had failed to raise her head.

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