French tennis star Benoit Paire could not help but laugh after his disastrous showing at the Open de Rennes in France on Wednesday.
The former world No. 18 was easily put to the sword by eighth-seed Jacob Fearnley, a British star who battled hard against Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon this year, in the opening round of the competition.
Fearnley cruised to a 6-1, 6-0 victory, winning the last 10 games consecutively in an emphatic win that left his opponent with no choice but to find the funny side of his own performance.
Paire won just 21 points during the entirety of the match, with his 22-year-old opponent breaking his serve on six different occasions.
The match lasted a total of just 37 minutes, with Paire losing the first set in 19 minutes before trumping that time in the second set with a 6-0 loss within 18 minutes.
The Frenchman double-faulted on match point to prompt an unhappy reaction from the crowd, who responded with boos. Paire sarcastically blew kisses after his poor display before shaking the hand of Fearnley and heading for the locker room.
After the match, Paire took to social media to poke fun at himself and the level of his performance. He tweeted a series of laughing emojis just moments after the match in a gesture that may indicate that he is already drawing a line through the performance rather than dwelling on the defeat.
The match did not take the crown for the shortest match in ATP history though. In 2014 at the Miami Open, Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen beat Bernard Tomic in just 28 minutes, in a record which is likely to prove very tricky to beat – thankfully for Paire.
