Tennis player defends violent dad

A 16-year-old Romanian tennis player who was hit by her father after losing a match in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona last month said she “deserved” to be slapped across the face.

Andrada Surdeanu’s dad hit his daughter in the face, bloodying her nose, after a quarterfinal loss in the International Tennis Federation girls’ tournament in northern Israel.

Surdeanu said her father, who is also her coach, attempted to confiscate her phone as punishment for her defeat, but hit her when she refused to hand it to him.

The tennis player suffered light injuries and was treated by a doctor on spot.

Shortly after the incident, Surdeanu’s father, Lucian, was detained by Israeli police and spent the night in a nearby station. He was later slapped with a NIS 1,465 ($367) fine.

But despite the incident, Andrada Surdeanu, who is ranked 249th in the world, rushed to her father’s defense.

“My father is not a beast, he didn’t break my nose, I didn’t have my face covered in blood,” she wrote on her Facebook page last week.

“It’s true, he slapped me once. So what? I deserved it. It was my fault because I’ve yelled and said some words to him. I was irresponsible after all the sacrifices he made for me. I admit that I was scared in that moment, but I know he regrets what he did and he loves me as much as I do. He exaggerated a little, but he didn’t deserve to be arrested. I hope we will get home soon. I’m worried for him. I want to continue this journey in tennis with the support of the whole family.”

Surdeanu later expressed fear that the fallout from her father’s outburst would harm her playing career.

“I’ve played tennis for 10 years, and I have the feeling that this episode is going to follow me for the rest of my life,” she said during a Tuesday interview with ProSport.

“Maybe I want to go to a tennis academy in the United States, to play there. But who will accept me if they know I was hit by my father?”

Lucian Surdeanu, on his part, made no public statement regarding the incident.