“Shut your mouth!”
Tennis women bicker after frustration
08/11/2023 09:29 am
Maria Sakkari expresses frustration and her opponent fails. In Montreal, spectators of the top-class tennis tournament experience a heated moment. This has no consequences. It could have turned out differently.
Things got heated for a moment at the top-class tennis tournament in Montreal: In the second round match between top Greek player Maria Sakkari and Danielle Collins, outsider Collins led 6: 4, 2: 1 when her frustrated opponent hit a ball into the audience. Sakkari didn’t seem to meet anyone and immediately raised his hand in apology, but Collins didn’t want to stop there. The American pointed out the chair umpire to the incident, which should have resulted in a warning or even a warning. Sakkari didn’t like it at all: “The ball hit the ground, I didn’t hit anyone.”
Collins acknowledged her opponent’s defense with an annoyed “Shut up! Shut up!” Sakkari didn’t want to leave it at that: “What’s your problem? I didn’t hit anyone. I hit the ball with the frame and he…” That wasn’t enough of an excuse for Collins: “You hit the ball in the stands, Maria. You almost met someone.” Then the chair umpire managed to calm the situation down again.
“You shouldn’t look away”
Neither the action of frustration nor the subsequent battle of words had any consequences. The world ranking eighth Sakkari finally lost the thread, qualifier Collins advanced to the next round with a 6:4, 6:2. However, the anger at the beginning of the second set apparently did not leave any deeper wounds: After the match, both players shook hands at the net. Tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg demanded that “the officials have to be much stricter when players hit the ball recklessly and throw racquets into the stands. You shouldn’t look the other way when that happens”.
At the French Open, a similar situation caused a stir, tears and a subsequent heated discussion: The doubles specialist Miyu Kato had hit a ball over the net after a rally – and hit a ball girl on the neck. The girl burst into tears after a few moments and was visibly upset, finally she was led away crying.
The unintentional failure had bitter consequences for Kato and her partner Aldila Sutijadi: After a short discussion, the two were disqualified, Kato’s immediate apology was useless. “I would like to sincerely apologize to the ball girl, my partner Aldila, my team and my fans for today’s mishap,” the Japanese later wrote. “It was completely unintentional.”
The decision was clearly too hard for two experts: “The ball was slow and did no damage. You have to respect the decision, but for me it wasn’t serious enough,” said Spaniard Àlex Corretja, formerly number two in the world rankings on Eurosport . For the German tennis legend Boris Becker, the decision was “totally exaggerated”. A few days later, Kato won the mixed competition of the Grand Slam tournament alongside German Tim Pütz.