There was controversy during the match between Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi, and Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo when Kato accidentally hit the ball away and it struck one of the ballgirls in the corner of the court during the French Open 2023.
The incident took place during the second set of their match against Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo on Court 14. The Japanese and Indonesian duo were prepping themselves for the next game before things went horribly wrong. The video of the same has gone viral as well.
In the video, Kato is seen hitting the ball straight to the ball-girl, who was seen crying after being hit. Kato went up to her to check on her as she seemed rattled but fine.
Seeing the incident, supervisors and officials took a call to disqualify the pair. Even the Japanese Kato was in tears after her Roland Garros dreams were brought to an unfortunate end.
Back in 2020, current World No.3 Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the US Open after he hit a female line judge during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta. In 2007, Djokovic also hit a ballgirl with his shot during a match in Madrid, after which he immediately went and apologised to her with a hug.
“It's just a bad situation for everyone,” their opponent Bouzkova said. “But it's kind of something that, I guess, is taken by the rules, as it is, even though it's very unfortunate for them... At the end of the day, it was the referee's decision.”
Bouzkova said she did not see the ball hit the ball girl, but 'she was crying for like 15 minutes.' She said one of the officials said the ball 'has to do some kind of harm to the person affected' and that at first, (Juge) didn't see that.
Bouzkova said she and Sorribes Tormo told Juge 'to look into it more and ask our opponents what they think happened.
As far as Kato and Sutjiadi are concerned, they fought hard in the opening set before throwing the towel in the tie-breaker and losing 6-7 (1-7). They were leading 3-1 in the second set before the blemish from Kato ended their French Open journey. The pair started their campaign in an impressive manner after they beat Jule Niemeier and Caroline Dolehide in their first-round match. Thereafter, they defeated Linda Noskova and Irina Khromacheva 6-4, 7-5 in the second round.
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