Love is a common word used in tennis matches. It's used to denote a score of zero. The common theory behind this is that "L'oeuf" is French for the word "egg," and a big fat zero is also known as a goose egg.
In one ITF tennis match in Las Vegas, Nevada, there was absolutely zero love between two female tennis players who went at it after a postgame handshake turned sour. What started with a racket throw and an obnoxious scream turned into a shoving match.
One of the ladies' fathers even jumped the fence during the scrum.
Alycia Parks-Katherine Sebov Tennis Fight
OMG ...Catfight in Vegas. (Via https://t.co/8BP7cNFqA1) pic.twitter.com/0N8rw9QaXA
— Paps (@DatGoneIt77) November 7, 2019
RELATED: Wild Golf Fight Breaks Out Because of Slow Play
The woman at the bottom of the screen is 18-year-old American Alycia Parks. She hits a shot long that ends the match, and her opponent, 20-year-old Canadian Katherine Sebov, screams in the most obnoxious way possible, "Come on!"
Sebov didn't win a nail-biter. She won the match by a score of 6-0, 7-6 at the $60,000 ITF Henderson Tennis Open.
Out of frustration or anger, Parks then throws her racket to the ground in disgust because her opponent doesn't know how to win gracefully.
The post-match handshake is when things got nasty.
Sebov aggressively squeezed Parks' right thumb — far from a normal handshake — which led to a pretty pissed-off Parks. The heated exchange turned physical when Sebov pushed Parks twice before officials stepped in. The umpire didn't issue any penalties.
"Squeeze my hand again!" Parks yells.
Michael Parks, Alycia's father, jumps the fence on the left-hand side of the video (and clumsily falls, for what it's worth) to intervene as well. He wasn't happy. He can be heard saying, "forfeit her! you see what we go through, she squeezed her hand!"
Both girls had different versions of how it went down.
Alycia Parks, who is from Port St. Lucie, Florida, told The Palm Beach Post the blame should fall on Sebov.
"She grabbed my hand and threw my arm back at me," Parks said. "That was kind of aggressive to me. I'm not going to let it pass."
She also took to Twitter to explain:
So about this whole video situation after the last point I walked to the net the opponent slapped my hand and squeezed it harder then anyone else with aggression I told the ref what happened if you could see that?s why he climbed down from his chair before we could even shake
— Alycia.parks (@TheRealAParks) November 8, 2019
Hands with him he wouldn?t say anything to her so I walked to her to say don?t ever squeeze my hand again the opponent turns around and gets big and reaches towards me with full force and pushes me twice while during the match the mom was coaching and had said something to me
— Alycia.parks (@TheRealAParks) November 8, 2019
On top of that if you won the match why are you squeezing my hand in aggression looked at me with anger and pushed my arm back after the handshake instead of letting go lightly?
— Alycia.parks (@TheRealAParks) November 8, 2019
Sebov, who is from Woodbridge, Ontario, told Tennis.life (via Open Court) that what Parks said is "pure lies" and people didn't know "the whole story."
"What you guys didn't see was that (as Parks arrived at the net) she was mocking my celebrating in a very disrespectful manner, with the head bob. That was her imitating me ... She wanted to give me the limp fish (handshake)," Sebov said.
"I just took her hand firmly, gave her a professional handshake, and walked away to my bag. I didn't realize she was charging at me until she was very close on my side. The refs and line umpires were having trouble holding her back. As a reflex I just blocked her, to defend myself."
"Her dad toppled onto the court, and he ran, implying that I'm racist or whatever. Which is completely ridiculous."
Only the two girls know exactly how things went down. Here's what looks to be a picture from the handshake, however:
— Paps (@DatGoneIt77) November 8, 2019
Was it aggressive? Was either of them in the wrong or was this just two competitors going at each other? Hey, at least no one was hurt in all this. Except maybe the dad's legs.
