British tennis star Cameron Norrie apologized and avoided disqualification when a racket he threw in the air hit a spectator at the ATP Tour tournament in Auckland on Tuesday.
Auckland-born Norrie was facing match point against Argentina’s Facundo Diaz Acosta when he lightly tossed his racket into the air. The racket struck a woman in a courtside box who was not injured.
Video of the incident showed a woman in a hat reacting quickly and turning away the racket as the crowd gasped.
Norrie received a warning from the chair umpire and lost 6-2, 6-3 in the first round of the tournament. He reached the final in Auckland in 2023.
“I didn’t intend to do this, but it’s still not ideal and I’ve never done anything like this,” Norrie said. (The spectator) “was laughing and I just said ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ And she said ‘yeah, I’m totally fine.’
“It wasn’t serious. But as we’ve seen with other players, you can easily get kicked out if he catches them in the wrong place or they’re not looking or something.
Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
“I had no intention of doing that and it’s definitely not me to do something like that. I apologized very quickly and I want to apologize in general. I’m not happy with the way I behaved.
According to ESPN, Norrie was ranked 49th in the world last year and 18th in the world in 2023.
Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the 2020 US Open after accidentally hitting a linesman with a ball and at the 2023 French Open, Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were excluded from the women’s doubles after a ball hit by Kato hit a baller.
Also in 2023, Australian tennis player Marc Polmans was kicked out of the final qualifying round of the Shanghai Masters after hitting a ball in the chair umpire’s face.
According to the BBCthe Canadian Denis Shapovalov was absent for hit the referee with a ball during a 2017 Davis Cup match against Great Britain, while in 2012, Argentine tennis player David Nalbandian was disqualified at after injuring a linesman by shoving a billboard into his shin.