Ernests Gulbis has made it a bit of a habit of venturing into the unknown and the unexpected at his press conferences. First there was the talk about how “every person should go to jail once”, then there were indignant comments about how the likes of Federer and Nadal are boring and stuck-up, and most recently, the borderline sexist proclamations about women in tennis.
The Latvian, however, seems determined to raise it up a notch every time. After his first-round win at the 2014 Wimbledon championships on Monday, Gulbis was asked a fairly innocent question about the role of umpires in tennis, and how they might not be needed in the future with technology starting to pervade the sport more and more everyday. But Gulbis being Gulbis, he took the conversation in a dramatically different direction, choosing to completely ignore the topic of umpires and talk instead about...vampires.
Yes, you heard that right. Gulbis mistakenly (or deliberately, you can never tell with him) thought the reporter was asking him about vampires. In response, the Latvian asks, with a completely straight face, “Get rid of vampires?”. Then, he promptly gets into a long-winding, philosophical speech about freedom of choice and speaking your mind, ending with the rather cryptic comment, “vampires are not vampires”.
Been watching too much Twilight lately, Ernie? What with Gulbis’s soliloquy about the creatures of the night and Luis Suarez’s biting antics from yesterday, it’s not hard to see why vampires are such a popular subject in today’s times.
