By Romana Cvitkovic
The tennis world went into overdrive Saturday afternoon as Ivan Ljubicic tweeted a comment targeted at American tennis players supposedly skipping the European tournaments. Americans John Isner and Mardy Fish quickly fought back on Twitter with Fish almost immediately deleting his tweet after he sent it.
Of all the tennis players looking to cause controversy, newly-retired Croat Ivan Ljubicic would not be high on my list that includes the likes of Daniel Koellerer, Yannick Noah, John McEnroe and Marat Safin. Hell, even Marat Safin has cleaned up his act and holds a seat in the Russian Parliament!
But I digress. In light of Mardy Fish pulling out of the Mutua Madrid Open due to fatigue and Andy Roddick skipping both Madrid and Rome due to a hamstring injury, the presence of American ATP players at the European clay tournaments has dwindled. But Ljubicic’s tweet may have gone a little too far to point the finger.
Three hours later, American John Isner (who was ousted in the second round of Madrid by another Croat, Marin Cilic, and is scheduled to play Rome this week) defended his friend’s absence from the tournaments in Madrid and Rome:
Not even an hour later, Fish fired back heavily at Ljubicic before almost immediately deleting the following tweet.
Unfortunately, the internet is not forgiving once you put something out there. Perhaps this conversation should have occurred through direct messaging, email, or BBM. It’s one thing to put a “generalized comment” on your personal Twitter but it’s also another nobler thing to privately respond. Not sure if there is history here between Fish and Ljubicic, but hopefully the 140 character limitation framed responses insufficiently. However, the fans were drinking it up …
Whoa!Twitter war waged. Shots fired! Shots fired!
— Ataraxis (@Ataraxis00) May 12, 2012
Funny that Isner thought about Fish and not Roddick
— enrico maria riva (@enricomariariva) May 12, 2012
Mardy Fish, nothing is deleted on the internet. Nothing. Ever. Ask Feli Lopez about the US shit Open.
— julesdc (@julesdc) May 12, 2012
epic that Fish deleted the tweet immediately afterward. Realized how DUMB it was.
— Ricky Dimon (@RD_Tennistalk) May 12, 2012
Mardy may be convalescing somewhere in Malibu, but he’s still got some energy left to fire off a few Twitter zings…
— Erik Gudris (@AdjustingTheNet) May 12, 2012
@Ataraxis00 I think Fish is sensitive b/c he’s having a tough time physically & would love to be playing more tennis than he can.
— Kimber Bennett (@DirtyOldBroad) May 12, 2012
This happens everytime a player retires doesn’t know what to do with there time at first so they tweet a lot. Sometimes controversial xD
— Stella (@storacle) May 12, 2012
I do think that Ljubicic needs to calm it on the whole keyboard warrior thing… or join MTF.
— Foot Fault (@FootFault_) May 12, 2012
