During a tennis tournament in Ghana, a controversy erupted when a player punched his opponent after a match. The incident happened during the ITF Juniors tournament on Monday and the players involved are Michael Kouame and Raphael Nii Ankrah.
Kouame, 15, met Ghana’s smitten Ankrah on center court after losing the match. He seemed to want to shake a hand, but instead punched Ankrah in the face. The incident was captured by viewers in attendance and the video quickly went viral.
Number 1 seeded player Michael Kouame from France ???????? beats Raphael Nii Ankrah ???????? after losing in the ongoing TGF ITF jnrs world tour in Accra sports stadium pic.twitter.com/pj4WjfifXZ
— KENNETH KWESI GIBSON ???? (@Kwesi_Gibson) Apr 4, 2022
The blow later led to an all-out brawl, videos posted on social media showed.
The footage was initially shared by the Functional Tennis podcast, which said in an Instagram post on Tuesday that the video will be removed. But a tennis coach obtained the video and posted it on Twitter, after which it went viral, according to New York Post† It has been viewed more than 7.38 lakh times on Twitter.
Kouame, a tennis player from France, topped the competition but lost the opening set to his opponent. He won the second set and the match ended in a tiebreak.
The tiebreak was also hard fought, but Ankrah came out victorious in the end. The final score was 6-2, 6-7, 7-6.
The Ghanaian was shocked by Kouame’s blow and got into an argument with the French player during the fight. It is unclear what caused Kouame to lash out at Ankrah.
— KENNETH KWESI GIBSON ???? (@Kwesi_Gibson) Apr 4, 2022
promoted
Ankrah is now through to the second round where he will face Ishmael Nii Nortey Dowuona, also from Ghana.
He also appeared in a doubles match against Italy’s Davide Brunetti and France’s Michael Kaouk.
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