The craziest quarter in UTS history? Paire “The Rebel” vs Fritz “The Hotshot” at UTS Los Angeles

With Taylor “The Hotshot” Fritz already through to the Final 4, and Benoit “The Rebel” Paire eliminated from the tournament (despite scoring the most points on average per quarter), match four of UTS Los Angeles could well have been a bit of a dead rubber.

Instead, it produced perhaps the craziest quarter of action in UTS history.

Prefaced by Paire issuing an open invite to party with him tonight — “If someone wants to go out with me tonight, let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram”— the quarter started with The Hotshot in blistering form.

Fritz blazed winners off both wings, including several breathtaking forehands around the post. The Rebel looked helpless in response, at one point putting his hand over his eyes and wafting his racquet from side-to-side, indicating how futile he felt his attempts at returning Fritz’s shots were.

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That is, until Paire began taking his serves as rapidly as possible, cramping The Hotshot for time between points. At one stage, The Rebel even fired a serve down while Fritz was not even on the right side of the court, causing the American to blow up and insist that the referee overturn the point. His wish was granted, in turn sending The Rebel straight up the chair umpire’s ladder for a heated six-way confrontation between players, coaches and referees that lasted the best part of two minutes.

Paire in super-sayian mode

Following the argument, it seemed Paire would self-destruct.

Instead, the Frenchman went super-saiyan and reeled off a string of points to draw within touching distance of his opponent. Just when it seemed The Rebel might steal the quarter, an error sent the 34-year-old into a downward spiral, which manifested itself in not one, not two, not three, but FOUR tennis balls being smashed out of the court in rage, with the last one graciously supplied to him by Fritz for pulverising.

Immediately after losing the quarter, The Rebel promptly climbed into the crowd to take selfies, leaving his coach to attend his mid-match interview instead.

Oh, and did we mention that during all of that, Mike Tyson arrived courtside at UTS Los Angeles?

Thankfully for Fritz, he won the match 3-0 and will get an early night to recover at his home in California, before returning for the Final 4 tomorrow.

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