French Open ace Irina-Camelia Begu has brought a young fan to tears after she threw her racquet into the in frustration.
During the second-round matchup between Begu and Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, the Romanian had just dropped the opening point of a game in the third set.
Begu was trailing 2-0 when the player’s emotions got the better of her as she threw her racquet towards her station.
The piece of equipment bounced off the clay court, passed the chair umpire Anis Ressaissi’s seat and into the sea of supporters into the stands.
Cries could be heard over the broadcast as footage showed a young fan clearly distressed.
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While the boy wasn’t directly hit the outburst had clearly frightened and shocked him as the racquet came close to hitting him.
There were gasps from the fans, with a five-minute play delay following as the umpire called for a supervisor.
Begu was allowed to continue the match, despite similar incidents seeing a matchup cancelled in the past, and she went on to defeat her opponent.
Alexander Zverev was defaulted at last year’s Mexican Open for repeatedly smashing his racquet in front of the umpire, whilst Novak Djokovic was also defaulted after accidentally hitting a line judge with a ball at the 2020 US Open.
Begu did appear to be remorseful as she went over to the young fan to console him and his family, while also posing for a photo.
However, the tennis world has questioned the leniency of the punishment towards the Romanian.
Australian doubles Grand Slam champion, Rennae Stubbs tweeted: “Seeing the Begu incident
& Rublev incident from the other day, tennis officials really need to step up their game. I think both should have been defaults.
“We MUST start making players accountable for stupid decisions & those were both stupid decision & could have been a lot worse.”
Court-side photographer, Ella Ling who was present at the game, said: “I don't know how she was allowed to continue?”
Meanwhile, Begu spoke about the incident at a press conference following the game.
She said: “It’s an embarrassing moment for me, so I don’t want to talk too much about it. I just want to apologise.
“My whole career, I didn’t do something like this, and I feel really bad and sorry. So I’m just going to say again: Sorry for the incident and, yeah, it was just an embarrassing moment for me.”
When asked if she should have defaulted, she replied: “You hit the clay with the racquet, but you never expect (it) to fly that much. It was, as I said, an embarrassing moment for me, and I just want to end it and not talk about it.”
Jayden Collins