A Roland-Garros player was allowed to continue his match – and it won – when he threw his racquet and it bounced off the stand, the latest episode in a series of professional tennis players expressing their displeasure at their equipment. .
Irina-Camelia Begu, a 31-year-old Romanian who finished 63rd, dropped a game-starting point in the third set against 30th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova in the second set in Paris, 2-0 in the third set. .
Begu went to the sidelines and chalked up his racket, which went off the red clay and flew just behind the chair umpire Anis Resaisi’s seat, landing among the spectators sitting on the edge of the court. There was panting from the fans and a baby crying.
The game was delayed for five minutes when Reissi called a supervisor who came to the court and spoke to the officer, then the crowd and then both players.
Begu was warned for non-sporting behavior but was allowed to continue playing.
Portuguese journalist Jos মর Morgado reports, “Alexandrova is angry, the crowd erupts.
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“Ekaterina is very upset. She throws a ball outside the court. So I can do it.”
“Code breaks (like beggars), crowds. Dramatic scenes.”
Court-side photographer Ella Ling, who was covering the match, tweeted: “All the beggars believe is how he was allowed to continue the game. Terrible.”
“People, why are we still allowing this?” Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times tweeted.
“Begu did not specifically throw the racket, but the consequences of his actions should not be avoided by the authorities.”
He won the first point after the break-in action and returned 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4 in six of the last eight games to reach the third round of the French Open. For the first time since 2019.
“It’s an embarrassing moment for me, so I don’t want to talk too much about it. I just want to apologize, “said Begu at the post-match press conference. “My whole career, I have never done anything like that, and I feel really bad and sorry. So I’m going to say it again: sorry for the incident and yes, it was an embarrassing moment for me.
Did he think he would be a defaulter – in other words, the game was stopped and the match was lost – Begu replied: “You hit the ground with a racket, but you never expected (it) to fly so much. As I said, it was an embarrassing moment for me, and I just want to end it and not talk about it. “
When a reporter asked what the chair umpire or supervisor told him, Begu said: “Again, can we go ahead?
Because I’ll answer the same thing: I’m just saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ and that’s it. “
A spokesman for the French Tennis Federation said the organizers had no immediate comment, but tournament referee Remy Azema was expected to address what happened.
In the first round of the French Open, the seventh-seeded man, Andre Rublev, reacted to losing the first set of a final victory by using his racket to hit a ball that had fallen from the base of the chair umpire’s stand. The ball flew to one of the courters to smooth the clay into the set.
Earlier this season, Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zaverev was put on probation for a year on the men’s ATP tour for repeatedly hitting the chair umpire’s stand with his racket after losing in the doubles at the Mexico Open in February. He was also fined $ 40,000 and had more than ,000 30,000 in prizes confiscated, including all the ranking points he earned in that tournament.
At the 2020 US Open, No. 1-ranked Novak Djokovic inadvertently hit a line judge’s neck with a tennis ball after missing a game in his fourth round match.
As Pablo Carreোo trailed Busta 6-5 in the first set, he went to the sidelines for a change, with Djokovic hitting a ball behind him. The ball flew right over the line judge, who landed on his knees behind the court and reached his neck.
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