British tennis player and world number 48 player Cameron Norrie was very lucky. He owes it alone to avoiding disqualification at the ASB Classic in Auckland.
The 29-year-old Briton, born in Johannesburg, South Africa, lost his temper during his match against Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta when he threw his racket and accidentally hit a spectator in the stands.
Norrie faced an unfavorable score of 2:6, 3:5 against Acosta’s match point, after which the Argentine won the match point. The Brit lightly threw the rocket into the air and it ended up in the box in the first row of the stands on one of the spectators.
To the surprise of many, the tennis player was not immediately expelled from the tournament, and he avoided a potentially hefty fine. He only received a verbal warning for his mistake from the Empire referee who came to check the situation.
Even the continuation of the meeting did not help him to turn around, and Norrie said goodbye to the tournament after losing 2:6, 3:6 already in the opening round.
“I didn’t want to do it. I would never do such a thing on purpose. The viewer laughed and I just said: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. She replied that she was fine,” explained Norrie after the meeting.
However, the problem was that tennis players were disqualified from tournaments for similar offenses in the past. “I apologized very quickly and I want to do it again. It wasn’t right how I behaved,” added Norrie.
One of the most famous similar incidents was when Novak Djokovic inadvertently sent the ball to the linesman during the US Open, after which the Grand Slam tournament ended for him. The same happened to Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi after Kato hit the receiver with the ball and the opponents complained about her behavior to the referee.
Source: sportweb.pravda.sk
