There's Tanking And Then There's Whatever Benoit Paire Did Yesterday As He Completely Threw His Tennis Match Before Walking Off In The 2nd Set

Alex Grimm. Getty Images.

When it comes to American sports we're no strangers to the act of tanking. The Sixers did it for years. Astros and Orioles built their teams through finishing in last place and stock-piling number 1 draft picks. Hell, the Patriots are doing it right now as they continue to play Mac Jones in hopes to win the Caleb Williams sweepstakes. With relegation not being a thing here, there's a way to game the system to set yourself up for the future with virtually no penalty. 

Well, with tennis you're your own team and boss. In theory there should be no tanking because you can only hurt your ranking, season point total, and prize money by losing on purpose. There's nothing to gain at all by continually losing. The worse you do the more difficult things become down the road in terms of future seedings and tournament entries. 

Then there's Benoit Paire. No one tanks a match like this French lunatic. He is a marvel to watch. 

Benoit is no stranger to tanking and throwing away matches. In fact, it's become his calling card as I've detailed on the blog before. It all kinda started around covid when fans vanished from the stands due to safety protocols. He likened it to playing in a prison and lost all the joy with the sport. He completely lost his mind. 

As a result his world ranking plummeted. Ranked as high as 20th in 2020 he quickly found himself into the 200s thanks to an incredible stretch of losing. 

He eventually stopped automatically qualifying for main draws in tournaments and had to win preliminary matches just to have a shot at a 1st round match. He's since been unable to reconfigure his brain despite tennis returning to normal conditions. That's why we're still witnessing him blatantly tanking matches. I mean that above video at a challenger event is wild. Imagine being a fan in the crowd? Even worse a bettor taking a stab on some day-time tennis? Unbelievable scenes. 

Benoit Paire is a rare breed. Seemingly forced against his own will to play a professional sport despite feeling like he's in jail 24/7. With a career earnings of $10M you'd think he'd have enough money from his glory days to not have to play anymore and yet here he is showing up to tournament after tournament with no aspirations of winning. 

Maybe he doesn't have any money left? But then why openly tank matches. That match I showed above he quit mid 2nd set and just walked off the court. No way he'd do that if he needed the money, right? So then why show up at all? Just an incredibly confusing man who anyone on the tour wishes they could play. What a specimen.