Veteran French tennis star Benoit Paire had his arms up in jubilation after his Round-of-64 clash at Miami Open on Saturday. However, it wasn’t a celebration of victory but defeat at the hands of rising Italian star Lorenzo Musetti.

Known for his on-court antics, nothing about the Frenchman seems to surprise the tennis world anymore, but he probably surpassed himself with his bizarre reaction after hitting a backhand wide to bring an end to a lopsided contest.

It was his 5th consecutive loss at the Miami event.

The 31-year-old Frenchman, who has publicly voiced his misgivings over closed-door events in the normal and dwindling prize money, largely blamed on the pandemic, seemed disinterested from the start and made his intent known with his reaction.

The bizarre moment triggered a volley of reactions from tennis fans as well as writers.

Christopher Clarey, a senior tennis writer from New York Times, shared a footage of that moment on Twitter and captioned it as, “Too late to get into the Orlando Challenger?”

A tennis fan also shared the footage on his Twitter page saying, “Benoit Paire’s 2021 in a nutshell”.

Another tennis follower shared the same clip with a cheeky caption that read, “Benoit liberated”.

The Frenchman was recently quoted as saying that closed-door events and bubbles have reduced tennis to a “tasteless profession.”

He further said that he was quite happy with his earnings from first-round exits in tournaments and didn’t want to push himself for a few $1000 more.

While not making any specific reference to reduced prize money at the Miami Open, he recently tweeted that the fact that the Big Three – combined moniker for Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – had toplined multiple withdrawals from the event showed there’s something wrong with the ATP.

His remarks drew a sharp rebuke from Nadal’s uncle and long-time former coach Toni Nadal, who said he should have kept his opinion to himself instead of bridging the game into disrepute.

READ MORE- “Tasteless Profession”: Benoit Paire Labels ATP Tour as ‘Sad, Boring and Ridiculous’