French tennis player Michael Llodra was slapped with a $2,500 fine for using a racial slur during his opening-round match against Ernests Gulbis at the ATP Tour's Indian Wells tournament in California, officials said Sunday.
Llodra yelled at a Chinese female supporter of Gulbis during his 6-3 5-7 7-6 (7-3) win over the Latvian on Friday.
The incident was witnessed by Canadian journalist Tom Tebbutt who wrote about it on Twitter.
"Sat very first row - dead centre behind the court for Llodra-Gulbis - heard a lot. Deplorable behaviour by Llodra," he wrote.
"ML smacked ball out of court, threw racquet, called female Gulbis supporter in crowd a 'f------ Chinese.' I confirmed later with brother of woman."
Officials said Llodra was also verbally abusive towards the ballkids and their coordinator during the match. Besides the fine, Llodra had to apologize for his actions.
Llodra withdrew from his second-round match against fellow Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the first set on Sunday because of a knee injury.
