In wake of Will Smith's infamous slap on Oscar night, it appears as though smacking individuals in a public setting has become all the rage nowadays. Video footage recently surfaced from an amateur tennis match in Ghana where a 15-year-old French competitor named Michael Kouame slapped a Ghanaian player named Raphael Nii Ankrah at center court, immediately following his defeat.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, after a first-round matchup in the ITF juniors tournament. The sixth-ranked Koume toppled his number one seeded opponent in three sets (6-2, 6-7, 7-6), to move on to the next round. But, what should have been a joyous occasion for the underdog quickly turned into an all-out brawl amongst fans in the stands after Ankrah smacked him across the face during the ceremonial post-game handshake.
According to reports, Kouame claims that several verbal insults were hurled at him throughout the tennis match regarding his mother. This led to frustration which eventually resulted in the highly publicized slap. The teenage tennis player from France took to Instagram yesterday to apologize for his actions.
"I sincerely regret my actions on Tuesday at the ITF Tournament in Ghana against Raphael Nii Ankrah," his statement read. "I regretfully struck him after an extremely frustrating and intense match. During the course of the match, I was repeatedly verbally abused by a large number of individuals in the crowd, including insults to my mother in particular. However, that does not excuse my behavior. I would like to publicly apologize to Raphael. I was wrong and completely out of line."
Scroll up to watch the slap and hit the first link of the writeup to watch the brawl that ensued afterward.
Source: NY Post
