Mathieu Montcourt Dies at 24

Sad and surprising news out of Paris today, as the FFT confirmed reports that rising French player Mathieu Montcourt died overnight. He was 24.

Montcourt was found dead in the stairwell of his apartment building in Paris by his girlfriend. No cause of death has been reported, autopsy to follow.

What makes the circumstances of Montcourt's death even more curious than they already are is the timing. Monday, the last day on which Montcourt was alive, was the first day of his five week suspension for betting on tennis. Montcourt never bet more than three dollars, and never bet on matches he was playing himself. His sentence was widely viewed as overblown, and that he was being made an example of by the ATP. How these circumstances would lead to his death is not immediately clear, but the coinciding of the suspension and his death is pretty jarring.

Montcourt's singles ranking hit an all time high of #104 just two weeks ago on June 22nd, after making the second round of the French Open for the third time in three tries. Montcourt was clearly on the up in his tennis career, which makes this turn of events all the sadder.

What obviously doesn't get said bluntly in instances such as these is that since he never made it inside the top 100, very few tennis fans and journalists knew Montcourt for anything outside the betting scandal headlines, or had ever seen him play (notwithstanding the BBC headline calling him a "star"). But for the players who from their early childhood have been facing the same players in tournament after tournament, Montcourt was someone they had known for well over a decade.

Tennis players, especially the French and Spanish, seem to be a tight knit group stretching pretty far down the rankings. The tightness is especially evident when the passing of a player outside the top 100 is mourned by a titan of the sport who as of two days ago was the top-ranked player in the world.

From rafaelnadal.com:

Mon Ami Mathieu Montcourt

Manacor, Spain - July 7th 2009

This morning I woke up to one of the worst news anyone can receive. I heard about the death of my friend Mathieu Montcourt and I am still in shock, I can't believe it.

I knew Mathieu since we were kids. We competed together at all the events at an international level for kids: Les Petit As, Copa Borotta, etc, and of course, we played again afterwards after we became professionals.

When someone like this disappears, when something like this happens, you realize where you are and you put into perspective your life, winning or losing a tennis match, not competing at an event and everything else. This is the loss of a guy who was only 24 and who was a sportsman. He won't be playing with us again.

I would like to send my deepest and most sincere condolences to his family, to his friends and to the French fans.

Mathieu, Rest in peace.

Rafa Nadal

I don't remember much about Montcourt's playing style, but I do believe I saw him play Lleyton Hewitt in the second round of the French Open in 2006, vs. Hewitt. I can't say I remember much of anything about watching him. Well, except for the hair.

Unlike his hair, which always looked pretty out of control, hopefully his friends and family are able to make peace with what happened.

RIP.