Cash erupts after fiery practice

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 34

Cash erupts after fiery practice

NZPA-AAP Melbourne Australia’s top tennis player, Pat Cash, yesterday allegedly assaulted a television cameraman at the end of a fiery practice session in the lead-up to the Davis Cup final against Sweden starting on Boxing Day. An ABC cameraman, Mike Patterson, aged 42, claimed Cash had punched him in the right eye while he was filming him near the dressing rooms. And a second cameraman, from Channel 10, said Cash had walked up to him and tried to pull his camera out of his hand. Earlier Cash had stormed off the centre court during a match with his team-mate, John Fitzgerald.

Patterson said he was about 10 metres from Cash and backed further away after being told by him to “f... off”.

However, he claimed Cash followed him and then threw a punch which struck him in the right eye.

The cameraman said he was considering whether to take any action over the alleged incident. During practice on the centre court, Fitzgerald had taken the first set against Cash then produced a string of winners against the young Victorian who promptly packed up his bag and stalked off. Cash had broken two rackets during his match with Fitzgerald. Australia's Davis Cup captain, Neale Fraser, said he was not surprised the incident had taken place.

For Cash it was a repeat of his incidentpacked practice session in the lead-up to the' 1983 Cup Final against Sweden.

Mr Fraser said he did not see the alleged incident between Cash and the cameramen but would talk to Cash about it.

“It’s typical of a highly

strung athlete preparing for one of the biggest matches in his life,” Mr Fraser said. “Sometimes in intrusions of your privacy, things don’t go the way you want them to.”

Mr Fraser said it was probably “one of the best things to have happened” and said it wasn’t something unexpected. “Cash is a perfectionist and he wasn’t happy with the way he was playing,” Fraser said, referring to his walk off. “I was expecting something similar to this to happen. It has happened before and it will happen again. Sometimes he (Cash) does some things that we might not be proud of.

"Pat finds it hard to accept the fact that someone can play well against him. He said he had had enough and wanted to go and there was no sense in his continuing to play in the frame of mind he was in.”

Mr Fraser said there was a lot of tension among the players and he could understand-how incidents could develop. “I don’t think that it should affect the spirit of our team and I’ll do everything to make sure it doesn’t,” Mr Fraser said. A fellow team member, Paul McNamee, said Cash had been in such good form but had “gone off the boil”.

“He’s obviously frustrated but it would be a pity if a big deal was made out of this,” he said.

Mr Fraser said Fitzgerald’s form yesterday had improved his chances of a singles place. “But there is still tomorrow to go and we’ll see what happens then,” he said. “Fitzy seemed to get some of the lead out of his feet on the centre court.” Mr Fraser said he was also happy with McNamee’s form, although he admitted he had been “flat on a couple of occasions”.