A racquet smash by Irina-Camelia Begu nearly hit a young fan in the stands during the second round of French Open.
Having escaped a default, the Romanian player went on to beat 30th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-7, 6-3, 6-4.
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The incident occured in the deciding set, when the 31-year-old Begu dropped her serve.
Irina-Camelia Begu just bounced her racket into the crowd, supervisor has been called. pic.twitter.com/EiIBNDAH2I
— Damian Kust (@damiankust) May 26, 2022
Begu slammed the racquet down and watched in horror as it bounced up into the nearby crowd on Court 13 and caused a kid to cry loudly.
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There were gasps from the fans around the incident and the umpire immediately jumped down from the chair to check the kid was okay.
There was a delay in proceedings as the players stood by to check on the child and the umpire called a halt to the match temporarily.
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Even though the supervisor was called in, Begu was not defaulted for her action, much to her opponent’s frustration.
Begu’s act adds to the growing list of on-court transgressions from tennis players, albeit mainly from male pros.
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Two days ago, Andrey Rublev smashed a ball at the player bench and it almost hit the court sweeper in the head.
