2023-06-04 18:02:02
PARIS (AP) — Japanese doubles player Miyu Kato and her Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified from their match at the French Open on Sunday after Kato accidentally hit a girl’s ball boy in the neck after a point.
In the second set of the duel on Court 14 at Roland Garros, Kato cleared a ball with her racket and it hit the ball boy, who was not paying attention to where the player was when she left the court.
In the first instance, the chair umpire Alexandre Juge decreed a warning to Kato. But after Remy Azemar, the tournament’s chief judge, and Wayne McEwen, the Grand Slam supervisor, came to the court to find out what had happened, Kato and Sutjiadi were disqualified.
The Czech Marie Bouzkova and the Spanish Sara Sorribes Tormo were declared the winners.
“It’s a bad situation for everyone,” Bouzkova said. “But it is something that, I assume, adheres to the regulations. And although it is something very unfortunate for them… it is a decision that corresponds to the judge”.
Bouzkova said she did not see the ball hit the ball boy, but that the girl “was crying for 15 minutes.”
He added that one of the officials explained that the ball “must do some kind of damage to the affected person” and that, “initially, (Juge) did not notice.”
Bouzkova mentioned that she and Sorribes Tormo told Juge “to find out more about what happened and to ask our rivals their opinion about what happened.”
During Coco Gauff’s 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-1 win over Mirra Andreeva on Saturday, Andreev whipped a ball into the stands of Suzanne Lenglen Stadium after giving up a point in the first set. The Russian received a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct, but nothing more.
“I am aware of that. I didn’t see it,” Bouzkova said. “I suppose it depends on the circumstances and they are things that can happen… without a doubt it is something complicated.”
In another notorious incident that occurred three years ago in the round of 16 of the US Open, Novak Djokovic was disqualified from his match against Pablo Carreño-Busta after hitting a linesman in the throat with a ball.
In the quarterfinals, Bouzkova and Sorribes Tormo will face the Australian Ellen Pérez and the American Nicole Melichar-Martínez.
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