Sometimes, announcers have the power to jinx athletes and give them the ability to immediately prove the announcer wrong based on what they just said.
This announcer jinx comes from tennis where the commentator underestimated how many rackets would be broken.
At the Open Sud de France, defending champion Alexander Bublik had a rough time in his first round match, but after surviving three match points to win the second set, he stayed alive for the third and deciding set. Bublik led 4-2 in the third set, but his opponent Gregoire Barrere came back to force a tiebreaker. After three double-faults resulted in Barrere leading 6-0 on the tiebreaker, Bublik snapped and broke his racket by slamming it into the court five times.
As the sound of the racket reverberated throughout the arena like a Ric Flair chop, broadcaster Sue Thearle said in a deadpan way, “The good news is he’s got plenty of other rackets.”
Mmhmm, about that…
the comic timing of "the good news is he's got plenty of other rackets" is off the chartspic.twitter.com/lQ4r8uLvh3
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) February 8, 2023
Bublik went to his bag and broke two more rackets right after the announcer said that. After breaking the rackets, Thearle capped the moment perfectly, saying, “I think that gives us a little indication of where his mindset is at right now.”
No doubt, this is poor sportsmanship and Bublik needs to better handle his emotions, but the commentary by Thearle and Mikey Perera is some brilliant unintentional deadpan humor.
Unsurprisingly, Barrere won the tiebreaker and advanced in the tournament.
