Terence Atmane Apologizes After Racket Throw Nearly Brings a Default in Shanghai Qualifying

Terence Atmane’s Shanghai Masters ended with an apology, not a result. The Frenchman threw his racket across the court during qualifying against Bernard Tomic, escaped the disqualification that would have followed if it had reached the crowd, retired a few games later, and then told his followers he is stepping back from the tour to rebuild, UbiTennis reports. He has fallen from No. 41 in April to No. 99, and the throw is what that slide looks like in public.

What actually happened in the Tomic match?

Atmane lost the first set, levelled the match, and unravelled in the decider. Tied at 2-2 in the third set, he missed a forehand and hurled his racket across the court in anger, UbiTennis reports. It struck the side of the court and stopped there, close enough to the barrier that a slightly different bounce puts it among the spectators.

At 3-5 down he retired, citing illness, EssentiallySports reports. It was his second retirement in two tournaments: at the Jingshan Challenger the previous week he had also stopped late in a deciding set, walking off at 5-5 in the third against Elias Ymer, UbiTennis reports. Qualifying draws are where rankings pressure concentrates, on outside courts far from the main-stadium attention that the Shanghai field’s top names are missing the event entirely.

Why did a racket that hit nobody nearly end the match?

Because the rule is about danger, not contact. Throwing equipment toward the stands is the kind of dangerous conduct that brings an immediate default when it connects, and officials judge the act, not the player’s aim. Atmane’s racket hitting the side wall instead of clearing it is the only reason the match continued.

The same Asian swing has already shown the other side of that line. Daniil Medvedev was disqualified from the China Open semi-final when a ball he hit struck a spectator in the eye, ending his tournament on the spot. Atmane was one bounce from joining him, and Coco Gauff’s week in Beijing, where a replayed point turned into a row about abuse aimed at a player, shows how quickly one flashpoint in China defines a player’s whole swing.

What did Atmane say afterwards?

He owned it, in an Instagram story reported by UbiTennis and TennisTemple. Paraphrased, his message ran in three parts: an apology for his behaviour the previous day, an explanation that dropping from the top 40 to the edge of the top 100 had stressed him more than he could have imagined, and a clear statement that the stress does not excuse the behaviour.

He then said he has decided to take a step back and rebuild from zero. Coming from a player who reached the last 16 in Miami this season and a quarter-final at the Acapulco 500, UbiTennis reports, that is not a scheduling tweak. It is a player stopping the slide before it becomes the story of his career, in a sport where video-review rows and conduct calls are now part of every big week.

Why does the ranking fall explain so much of this?

Because No. 99 is the tour’s trapdoor. Inside the top 50, Atmane entered Masters main draws automatically. At No. 99 he is back in qualifying, playing extra rounds on outside courts for the same events, with every deciding set carrying main-draw money and points he can no longer bank on.

He reached No. 41 in April and was still top 50 in August, UbiTennis reports, so this is a five-month slide, not a gradual drift. Two retirements in deciding sets, both while the match was still winnable, fit the account he gave of his own stress better than any opponent’s scouting report.

What did Atmane say in Almaty? (Update, October 20)

Update, October 20: the step back lasted two weeks, and the return came with a second apology, this one in person. Atmane beat Rinky Hijikata 7-6(5), 6-2 in the first round of the Almaty Open on Tuesday, his first indoor win on the ATP Tour, in his first tournament in Kazakhstan and one of his last four events of the season, Tennis Majors reports. Then he addressed Shanghai directly. “I received a lot of hate, which is pretty normal because I deserve it. I’ve been behaving pretty badly,” he said. “I was struggling a lot mentally for the past couple of weeks. The season has been very long for me. I was struggling with my mental health, so it hasn’t been easy for me, but I was trying to get a fresh start after this tournament, because Shanghai showed me that this kind of behavior has nothing to do on a tennis court at the highest level.”

Two things in that account are new. The first is the wording about his health: his October message had put his problems down to physical rather than mental health, and in Almaty he described mental struggles plainly, Tennis Majors notes. The second is the stake he named for the rest of his season. He is ranked No. 98 and is trying to protect his place in the main draw of the next Australian Open, which is the ranking line his whole autumn is now organised around. “I want to deeply apologize to everyone because this is not the type of behavior that I want to show to people,” he added. He plays the winner of Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Mattia Bellucci next in Almaty.

How did Atmane win his Almaty second round? (Update, October 22)

Update, October 22: by holding his nerve in exactly the situations that undid him in Shanghai. Atmane beat Mattia Bellucci 6-7(4), 7-6(2), 7-6(5) in the Almaty second round on Thursday, in two hours and 49 minutes, with all three sets settled in tiebreaks, TennisWatcher reports. He lost the first tiebreak, took the second decisively, and closed the third 7-5 in the breaker. No set was settled by a run of dominance, which is the point: this was the deciding-set pressure that produced a retirement at Jingshan and a thrown racket in Shanghai, and this time he stayed in it for a second straight match.

The draw now tests him properly. His quarter-final opponent is the winner of top seed Daniil Medvedev, the defending champion in Almaty, against Sho Shimabukuro, a match scheduled for later on Thursday. Bellucci had won their only previous meeting, in Australian Open qualifying in January 2025, and both men are left-handed, so the win also reverses a matchup that had gone against him. Two indoor wins in a week, after none in his career before Tuesday, is the first on-court evidence that the Almaty apology was more than a statement.

What happens next for Atmane?

The return has already answered the season question: it is not over, and Almaty is one of four events he still plans to play. He said his health problems were physical, not mental, in his first message, UbiTennis reports, and his Almaty comments have since reframed that account himself. The calendar is still on his side: he defends almost nothing for the rest of 2026, having won no matches after last year’s China Open, so the points pressure is about the Australian Open main-draw line at No. 98, not about defending a total.

The open questions are whether the ATP adds a fine or warning for the throw, and how far the Almaty run goes. Either way, the Shanghai clip will follow him: a racket an inch from the crowd is the image his rebuild has to outlast, and Tuesday’s win plus the unqualified apology is the first material he has given anyone to set against it.

The main draw he was trying to reach will run without its biggest name, after Jannik Sinner announced his season is over to treat the knee inflammation that has kept him out since July.

The Shanghai main draw then supplied the comparison case: Bublik smashed his racket, cut his hand on a courtside cooler and won his match anyway, feeding the same debate about where the default line sits when a racket is destroyed but nobody else is endangered.