British tennis star Cameron Norrie has apologized and avoided a disqualification when a racket he threw in the air hit a spectator at an ATP Tour tournament in Auckland on Tuesday.
Auckland-born Norrie was facing a match point against Argentina's Facundo Diaz Acosta when he lightly threw his racket into the air. The racket hit a woman in a courtside box who was not injured.
Video about the event it showed a woman in a hat reacting quickly and throwing the racket away 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 mean to do that but it's still not good to do that and I've never done something like that,” Norrie said. (Onlooker) “I was laughing and I said 'so sorry, I didn't want to do that.' And she said 'yes, I'm fine.'
“That was no big deal. But as we have seen with some other players, you can be easily forgotten if he catches them in the wrong place or if they are not looking or something.
Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
“I had no right to do that and it's absolutely not me to do something like that. I apologized very quickly and I want to apologize in general. I'm not happy with how I was polite.”
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 an umpire accidentally hit a line with a ball and at the 2023 French Open Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified from the women's doubles after a ball hit by Kato hit a ball girl.
Also in 2023, Australian tennis player Marc Polmans was suspended from the final round of qualifying at the Shanghai Masters after hitting a ball against an umpire's chair.
According to the BBCCanada's Denis Shapovalov was disqualified hit the umpire with a ball at the 2017 Davis Cup match against Great Britain, and in 2012 Argentine tennis player David Nalbandian was disqualified at after a line judge was injured by kicking an advertisement board.
