French tennis player inexplicably slaps opponent after losing match [Watch]

A controversy flared up during a tennis tournament in Ghana when one player slapped his opponent after a match. The unfortunate incident took place during the ITF Juniors tournament on Monday, and the players implicated are Michael Kouame and Raphael Nii Ankrah.

Kouame slapped Ankrah at the centre court after losing the match. He appeared to reach for a handshake but slapped Ankrah in the face instead. The incident was recorded by the audience present there and the video soon went viral.

The slap later led to an all-out brawl, videos shared on social media displayed.

Watch video here:

At first, the video was shared by the Functional Tennis podcast, which said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that the video will be removed. However, a tennis coach secured the video and shared it on Twitter following which it went viral, as per the New York Post. The video of the incident has been viewed over 7.38 lakh times on Twitter.

The French tennis player Kouame was the top seed in the tournament but was defeated in the opening set to his opponent. He won the second set, which took the game to a tie-break.

The tie-breaker too was tightly contested but Ankrah finally emerged victorious. The final score was 6-2, 6-7, 7-6.

The Ghanaian player was astounded by Kouame's slap and during the brawl, argued with the French player. It is still not clear what caused Kouame to lash out at Ankrah.

Ankrah has now advanced to the second round where he will come face to face with Ishmael Nii Nortey Dowuona, also from Ghana.

He also took part in a doubles match against Italy's Davide Brunetti and France's Michael Kaouk.

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