Mystery over Montcourt death as tragic tennis player is laid to rest

Published on Friday 10 July 2009 22:54

A POST-MORTEM examination of the body of 24-year-old French tennis player Mathieu Montcourt, who was found slumped dead outside the door of his apartment home near Paris early Tuesday, has failed to explain what caused his fatal heart attack.

Montcourt is described by friends and French Tennis Federation officials as being at the peak of his form and with no previous history of heart disease, and no significant problem was found during a rigorous annual medical exam he passed earlier this year.

Ranked 119th by the ATP and a close friend since childhood of Spanish champion Rafael Nadal, Montcourt was cremated yesterday morning in a private service near Paris. Afterwards, a ceremony was held in his honour at the Roland Garros tennis stadium, where tributes were led by his compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Stphane Traineau, a friend and publicist for Montcourt, told The Scotsman that the autopsy carried out on Wednesday at the Paris Institut Mdico-Lgale concluded he died from coronary thrombosis, but exactly what prompted this was still a mystery. "Mathieu's family have given me details of the post mortem report that concludes he suffered a fatal heart attack," said Traineau.

"But we don't know why it happened. Neither he nor his family have any known heart illness. A toxicology report revealed there were no toxic substances in his blood, no drugs, no medication, no alcohol, nothing. There were no suspicious marks on his body and police have ruled out any criminal reason for his death."

Montcourt was found at around 1am on Tuesday morning by his girlfriend, close to the front door of the ground-floor apartment they shared together in Boulogne-Billancourt, just west of Paris, situated close to Roland Garros. She said she opened the door after hearing a loud noise outside and found the sportsman lying lifeless on the ground beside his bicycle in a corridor of the apartment building.

Montcourt had spent the Monday evening at the nearby home of French Tennis Federation technical director Patrice Dominguez and his son, also called Mathieu, where he had watched a film. Afterwards he cycled home, a distant of about one kilometre.

"I can testify that he was a lad who never drank, never smoked and never committed any type of excesses," said Dominguez. "What happened is inexplicable for the coaches and all who loved him." It was on Monday that Montcourt began serving a five-week professional ban imposed by the ATP for having placed bets on other players' matches between June and September 2005, for which he also received a $12,000 fine. Initially an eight-week ban, it was reduced on appeal in May.

Montcourt, who gambled a total of $192 dollars and who never bet on his own matches, was angered by the sanction, which he dismissed as "ridiculous". Traineau said: "Mathieu was calm about the whole thing, he'd had plenty of time to get over it, a petty matter when he was just 20 years old, and it really wasn't a big deal for him. There's no way that would have stressed him anywhere near a heart attack."

The Frenchman played his last top-level game at the Roland Garros French Open in June, when he was eliminated in the second round by Radek Stepanek. He later played three Italian Challengers and another in Croatia last weekend, where he lost in the semi-finals. "I heard about the death of my friend Mathieu Montcourt and I am still in shock, I can't believe it," commented Nadal in a tribute posted on his website.

"When someone like this disappears, when something like this happens, you realise 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."