By Chris Oddo | Saturday April 22, 2017
Romanian Fed Cup Captain Ilie Nastase was banned from his team's tie with Great Britain on Saturday.
Photo Source: Ian Walton/Getty
Poor behavior and sexist and racial remarks have led to the removal of Romanian Fed Cup Captain Ilie Nastase. After a long weekend of well-documented transgressions, Nastase was removed from his chair and had his credentials revoked.
Nastase made a racist comment about Serena Williams’ unborn child, then proceeded to make sexist remarks to British Fed Cup Captain Anne Keothavang. All of that was reported on by the UK Guardian earlier today.
Things completely unraveled as the competition got underway on Saturday. Nastase got into a row with the British team and umpire over crowd noise and he ended up reducing Johanna Konta to tears midway through the second set of the second rubber.
At that point the match was suspended, and Nastase was removed. Reportedly Nastase began the day seething as he had gotten wind of the rumblings about his racist comments, which were covered by the British press.
Upon his departure, British journalist Eleanor Crooks captured this video of Nastase.
After the day’s events, which finished in Konta winning the rubber over Sorana Cirstea, Cirstea voiced her frustration about events that she felt had been blown out of proportion (full video of those comments here). She also felt that Konta was guilty of gamesmanship for delaying their match while trailing in the second set (Konta broke out in tears in response to dealing with Nastase’s belligerence and the rowdy crowd).
"We treated you guys so nice,” she said, according to Crooks’ Twitter feed. “I don't feel it's right that you put all this on us because we're a lower country than England."
The tie is currently split at one rubber apiece, with reverse singles and potentially doubles slated for tomorrow.
More to follow.