Roland Garros, ball girl hit by mistake: women’s doubles disqualified

Surprise disqualification in the Roland Garros women’s tennis tournament. The Japanese Miyu Kato and Indonesian Aldila Sutjiadi were excluded from the tournament after Kato accidentally hit a ball boy: the victory went thus to Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic e Sara Sorribes Tormo from Spain. But the outcome of the match was not as linear as one might think. The referee of the match Alexandre Juge in fact, he initially decided on the warning, a Japanese-style warning given the dynamics of the accident. In the second set Kato swung the ball and it flew towards the ball boy, who was not looking in the direction of the player. At that point the young woman began to gasp, crying with one hand resting on her chest where she had been hit.

After the decision of Juge, the referee of the tournament Remy Azemar and the supervisor of the Grand Slam Wayne McEwen they went to court 14 to check the situation, deciding for the disqualification of Indonesia’s Kato and Sutjiadi. “It’s just a bad situation for everyone,” commented winner Bouzkova. “But it’s something that, I think, is decided by the regulation, even if it’s a very unfortunate episode for them. … In the end, it was the referee’s decision.” Bouzkova said she didn’t see the ball hit the ball boy, “that she cried for about 15 minutes.” She said one of the umpires said the ball “must do some kind of damage to the person struck” and that “at first, (Juge) didn’t see it.” Bouzkova said she and Sorribes Tormo told Juge “to dig deeper and ask our opponents what they think happened.”

On Saturday, during the singles victory of Coco Gauff for 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-1 up Mirra Andreeva, the Russian threw a ball against the stands of the Suzanne Lenglen court after losing a point in the first set. Andreeva was cautioned by the chair umpire for unsportsmanlike conduct but no further penalties.