Angry tennis players aren’t just launching balls into the stands anymore.
British tennis star Cameron Norrie tossed his racket into the stands and hit a female fan during a loss to Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta on Monday in the first round of the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
The 29-year-old had just hit a forehand return into the net while trailing 6-2, 5-3. He would go on to lose the game and the match in straight sets.
Norrie received a warning from the chair umpire and he said the fan was unfazed by the incident.
“I wasn’t meaning to do that but it’s still not ideal to be doing that and I’ve never done something like that,” Norrie, who is ranked No. 48 in the world, said.
“[The fan] was laughing and I just said ‘so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ And she said ‘yeah, I’m completely OK.’ That was not a big deal. But as we saw with some other players, you can easily be defaulted if it catches them in the wrong spot or they’re not looking or something.”
Players have received penalties and have been defaulted from matches before for unruly behavior.
It mostly occurs when a frustrated players slam the ball and it ends up hitting a spectator in the stands.
“It is completely not me to do something like that. I apologized very quickly and I want to apologize in general. I’m not happy with how I behaved,” Norrie said.
The most famous incident came when Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the 2020 U.S. Open after accidentally hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball.
At the 2023 French Open, Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were defaulted from the women’s doubles bracket after a ball hit by Kato struck a ball girl.
Also in 2023, Australian tennis player Marc Polmans was defaulted from the final round of qualifying at the Shanghai Masters after hitting a ball into the face of the chair umpire.
The ASB Classic is one of several warmup tournaments taking place ahead of the Australian Open, which begins on Sunday.
— With AP
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