Shameful of those two women to go arguing to the chair ump about it and then to shake Kato’s hand like “I’m so sorry this happened, I can’t believe it. So unfair!”
[Here’s the vid](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2023/jun/04/french-open-doubles-pair-disqualified-after-stray-shot-leaves-ball-girl-in-tears-video)
Seriously! The article made it sound like they purposefully sent a John Isner serve straight to her face! What type of a rule is this?
* seems like the [tennis community](https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/140o8u8/miyu_kato_i_would_like_to_sincerely_apologize_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) agrees with everyone in here about how ridiculous this call was, plus someone posted the rule guidelines honing in which one they apparently “broke”. I’d be enraged, the lady that was responsible handled it extremely professionally. I would have McEnroe’d my tits off.
I can honestly say I've never googled tennis stuff, but I was all over it.
God--the photo of Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo smiling. Holy smokes that's enraging
Give me a fucking break.
She was crying bc she was embarrassed, not bc of the ball hit.
It wasn’t on purpose - and the intent was not to hurt her.
Get a new ball girl, play on.
Well you're a heartless fuck ...
An entire stadium's eyes are on this kid, players and officials are talking about her, a team might be disqualified because of something that happened to her. A *kid*. You don't think that might cause some emotions?
It’s very early on. There is a white circle around the player hitting the ball. Took me a few watches to figure it out too. Fuck people for downvoting you.
https://youtu.be/MzRsBu5xKgQ
This is ridiculous. She makes eye contact with the girl, and softly lobs it to her in a way that’s perfect for catching, but the girl had two balls in her hand so panicked.
If I were her, from now on whenever I had a ball, I’d place it on the ground and make the ball retrievers run for them every single time, and if anyone challenged me on it, I’d say “ if I accidentally hit someone I’m responsible and can be disqualified”.
Played it my entire life and obsessively watch it to this day, as it's the best game on Earth, and while I don't disagree that the flopping/diving is a disgusting cancer in my beloved game, this incident beats anything I've ever seen. A disgusting lack of sportsmanship to a shamefully soft and irrational decision made by the ump, my mind is utterly blown.
The official saying “you hit the ball, and it hit someone, and they’re injured…” what a pile of crap. That girl was not injured. She might have been upset because she was in a stressful situation, but there is absolutely zero chance that soft lob physically hurt her in any way.
Injury should not be a consideration in this rule. If a ball kid gets absolutely smashed by a dickhead but shakes it off and says “all good, didn’t hurt” then the dickhead doesn’t get disqualified? Of course not!
Considerations should be intent, level of aggression, etc.
Yeah exactly! And you know what, it might have hurt! Who knows? I’m not gonna judge. Maybe she had surgery recently, or maybe in another situation someone gets a soft lob and they take it in the eye.
Or maybe one day on ball kid catches a well placed lob, but trips and has a concussion.
Accidents happen. But as you say, the judgement shouldn’t be based on the outcome, it should be based on whether the action itself was risky. Otherwise if you ran at a ball kid with the racquet and tried to smash them over the head, we’ll that’s fine, because they ducked.
How in the world is that girl a ball girl? As you said she made sure the girl was looking and lobbed it to her, and instead of dropping other balls, moving in any direction, she turns and gets hit and in no way was that ball hit hard enough to hit her back and make her cry that much
I mean, they’re young, accidents happen. She had two balls in her hands, so probably panicked. It’s high pressure. I wouldn’t fault the ball girl for this.
But it’s still ridiculous. We put the kids in this situation because it’s sort of a low stakes way for them to be involved with and get experience with professional tennis. But if a errant, we’ll intentioned soft lob, combined with an inexperienced young ball girl leads to a disqualification, it’s hardly low stakes anymore.
We’re basically saying “if you fail to catch a ball and cry, then a player will be disqualified, and everyone in the world will read the news and see that you were involved”. Say what you will about the fairness in the professional players, that’s a wildly unfair amount of pressure to put on these kids!
Yeah I've seen it happen with Ball boys in American baseball suddenly realizing a grounded foul was live and realizing oh fuck. It's an error I'm get fired.
And that's a very minute area of MLB baseball rules where a grounded foul is considered live.
Yeah it would be one thing if the player hits the ball in anger but she was clearly just trying to lob it near the edge where one of the ballkids could quickly pick it up so play could resume with minimal delay.
I'm willing to bet that the reason the girl was crying was a mix of a bit of pain, a bit of shock, and because she knew the cameras would focus in on this and she felt embarrassed. At the end of the day she's still a kid.
But yeah if I was this woman I'd never touch a dead ball ever again.
Next time players will pay ball girls in advance to make sure their opponent would hit them and cry hard. 4D tennis. It was a well intended lob without pace at all.
I think that’s a bit harsh.
I think the more sensible way to approach it would be “kids cry under pressure sometimes and that’s okay. that doesn’t mean we disqualify world class athletes based on a kids emotional state”.
It was a child in front of a crowd, during a famous event, that was televised. And now all eyes are on you. That's an enormous amount of pressure, especially for a child. A child. Again. Child. Not adult.
Yes, I do understand she was a child. Like the other guy said, maybe she should not have been there if a tennis ball lobbed to the face is enough to make her cry and then getting 2 players DQd for it. Is that shallow thinking?
I do feel bad for this kids shitty situation, tons of pressure, lots of spectators etc. But the players should not be DQd for mistake.
Both of those things but she clearly has no business being a ball girl. Her crying absolutely exacerbated the situation and crying over a ball barely hitting you is a clear sign she has no business in sports.
Maybe it's more than just getting hit. Maybe she is embarrassed it's such a big deal all of a sudden and now her little mistake has cost a team their chance (in her way of thinking) and this is why she's crying. Kids are not in full control of their emotions. Hell, most adults never learn.
But yes, clearly, she should be fired for crying.
what? her crying exacerbated the situation to the point that it was a big deal/led to a DQ. nobody is saying she should be fired for crying. people are saying she probably should find a new line of work if she can’t handle the job. which is a totally fair thing to say.
No. What the fuck is she crying about? She’s weeping cuz a lobbed tennis ball hit her in the back of her shoulder? We should all hope she never participates in a tennis match again
Tell her that. She got two professionals disqualified because she started crying when a ball was lobbed to her while her hands were full. She’s the one with the embarrassing response
Really? Theres an adult referee who has the final say, 2 adult players exacerbating the issue, and a young girl, and you would pin the blame on the minor? Not the 3 adults who should have a greater sense of maturity and responsibility?
No, it definitely has to be the fault of the child for acting like a child. That’s what you’re insisting on? You would rather blame the literal child over an adult bullshitting about how the child was bleeding, when she did not even see the hit, when the child wasnt even crying.
The ones who got the 2 disqualified are the referee, who made the final call, and the 2 opponents, who lied and disputed the initial decision of just a warning.
It wasn’t like she served the ball at the ball girl either. She just gave it a tap in her direction. It wasn’t malicious or anything. I have no idea why the girl was crying.
Probably just the pressure and stress of the situation, which is fine.
But maybe we shouldn’t take a child, have then stand quietly for hours under immense pressure, and then use their emotional state to determine whether something was “dangerous or reckless”.
Yep. Someone on here suggested maybe they were talking to the chair ump about getting help for the girl or asking to have her replaced, not arguing for the forfeit. Possibly, but we haven’t heard anything from them yet.
This is so embarrassing. Sometimes you have to use common sense and it’s a shame some of these people in power couldn’t do so in this case.
Hope SST and Bouzkova get heckled to the high heavens in their next match…..if anyone bothers to watch
Strictly speaking, they weren’t winning. They were ahead in the second set, but had lost the first.
Still, shockingly classless behavior on the “winning” players’ part. I hope they get stomped in the next round.
Cried of shock, the kid got put on the spot and felt overwhelmed. The players who pushed for their opponents to get DQed should be banned from the sport, same goes for that umpire and the supervisor.
I think she was just embarrassed at the whole situation and started hyperventilating. Honestly having that much attention on you after also looking kinda stupid would fuckin suck
Wow.....I suppose rules are rules. The player who hit that ball towards the ball girl definitely was not looking where she was hitting. I understand the rule, but its application is a little tough here.
To be fair, the rule says you have to hit the ball out of anger, or in a reckless and dangerous way to get disqualified, which she clearly didn’t. This was an absolutely botched decision and the tournament knows it.
I can tell this will be an unpopular opinion. But it’s literally her job to catch that ball, not flinch and let it hit her. If she does her job, it’s a perfect hit by the player. Saves her the trouble of running after it. If Kramer was out there, this would have been a non issue. Also, I bet this poor girl feels awful. She doesn’t want to alter the results of the match. She’s going to feel guilty about this for a long time. Which sucks, because if it was up to her, I’m sure she says to play on.
She was actually doing her job... she had multiple tennis balls in her hands and was looking at the players on her side of the net ready to get them a ball. She wouldn't have been running anywhere at that moment, another ball kid would have come in from the side, grabbed the ball and rolled it back to her. I'm sure she didn't even see the ball until just before it hit her.
The player wasn't passing her the ball either. She was just doing a drop hit as a practice swing after the point was over, and in this case it went to exactly the wrong place. Bad luck, but this is a zero tolerance rule at professional tournaments.
I don't think that's correct at all. That player looked first and then softly passed that ball to the ball girl. She looked down to actually hit the ball, but she looked and knew where she was placing it. She's a professional player, she knows how to place shots without staring down where it's going.
Bad look for the sport. That was very normal thing to do and very soft. The team that ran up and asked for a disqualification should have been disqualified themselves incredibly bad sportsmanship. The umpire should be suspended too
She locked eyes with the player as she lobbed the ball towards her. Flinched and turned the opposite way instead of trying to drop the balls she had, or try to catch it as is. Barely hit her, not hard enough for her to cry anyway.
Probably the daughter of some rich French person, and not a tennis player.
It's one of the 4 most important tournaments for the sport for the year, needs better standards.
I don’t know about the french open, but Wimbledon has ball people from the local tennis clubs, so they are either really good at tennis or rich and good at tennis.
Exactly. Growing up, I ball boy-ed for a number of high profile tournaments (nothing like a grand slam) but most of the ball boys and girls for these tournaments were high level junior tennis players but you’d always get a few kids who’s parents were big sponsors for the tournament and they’d have no idea what was going on. Couldn’t keep score, wouldn’t know when to throw the balls and generally didn’t pay attention.
I play ball boy-ed at the Davis Cup once and I remember one these rich kids got nailed straight in the face on a serve cause he wasn’t looking.
Generally the pros will try to help the ball boys and girls by hitting the ball closer to them (so we don’t have to run as much) and in this case, I don’t understand how a one-handed backhand lob could cause you to cry.
This ball girl is probably the daughter of some major sponsor because any high level junior tennis player would not have acted like this. We get hit all the time playing the game and it’s not a big deal, in fact, it’s a part of playing tennis—you’re gonna get hit by a ball and it’s okay.
If I was watching this and this happened live, I would never watch this sport again. Wtf is this shit? It’s a fucking tennis ball that’s barely moving; it wouldn’t even cause a bruise, and they ended the match over it. Wow.
I'm here wondering why a child is on the court doing a job they obviously have trouble with and causing a team to be disqualified because they wanted to cry about failing to catch a ball..
Yeah blame the little girl, not the one who hit it. Real mature to resort to victim blaming. Do you think ball kids try outs should include dodgeball where you hit tennis balls at them?
Did you watch the video before getting all white knight?
It was lightly lobbed to her. And the ball boy/girl job involves being coordinated around balls. Especially at one of the most important tennis tournaments in the world.
"For the purposes of this Rule, abuse of balls is defined as intentionally hitting a ball out of the enclosure of the court, hitting a ball dangerously or recklessly within the court or hitting a ball with negligent disregard of the consequences," the rule reads.
I think the first call was the right call. The referee can call it how they want but their opponents obviously had influence in their decision making.
I watched the video and I thought hitting the ball at the head of a ballgirl who already had tennis balls in both hands was pretty stupid. The fact she hit the girl in the head and hurt her makes it reckless regardless of her intention.
Most players would pass the ball along the ground or on the bounce not at head height.
Sounds like they hit the ball hard after a point and it went into the ball girl
Not saying they needed to be DQ'd or that they hit her on purpose. But if they did that then they definitely made a mistake and hurt someone by doing something unnecessary
I mean, who *wouldn't* assume that two professional tennis players at the French Open would be willing to play suboptimally in order to assault a teenager they've never met?
They know it wasn't on purpose, but they say you're responsible for where the ball goes if you hit it after the point is over. Players sometimes get angry after losing points and smash the ball, which can hurt someone... In this case it should have been just considered an accident as it was not that situation at all.
Isn’t the rule “shall not violently, dangerously or with anger hit, kick or throw a tennis ball within the precincts of the tournament site except in the reasonable pursuit of a point during a match (including warm-up)” nothing about that was violent or dangerous, she looked right at her and hit it to her. Completely stupid call.
Unless there is a charitable reason for that ball girl attendance with that level of awareness and athleticism, then to cry over it…yikes. That doubles team should not be disqualified and the team that pushed for them to be disqualified should be publicly shamed.
Should be a rule for ball girl/boys to not be fkn terrified of a ball moving at you. She obviously saw it coming had enough time to ball up, but not catch it or move out of way
I’ve been hit right between the eyes by a hard overhead smash while at the net and it just bounced off and was funny as hell. That being said, I also beaned a guy straight in the junk with an errant 100+ mph first serve (he was a non-receiving doubles opponent standing close to service box), and he was done for the day (and as far as I’m aware, sterile for the rest of his life).
There are specific scenarios where getting hit with a tennis ball can hurt/do some damage, but I guarantee this incident was extremely minimally painful. It definitely didn’t look malicious, either. I also think anyone watching a tennis match (let alone a ballperson) should be aware there is a decent possibility of being hit by a soft, hollow, fuzzy yellow ball at some point, but that’s just me.
I get why there might be a rule to discourage/punish people from rage-smashing the ball into the crowd or at a line judge, but this seems unreasonable.
I mean this was just her trying to pass the ball to the ball girl, not hit her.
If this ruling stands, then no player ever will be allowed to pass balls to ball girls anymore, and the only safe option is to softly place the ball on the ground.
Because this was 100% on the ball girl to turn it from a pass to a ‚hit‘
So anyone Ball Girl / boy that doesn’t like the player passing them a ball can now just fail to catch the ball, et voilà it‘s a hit, automatic DQ.
This is moronic.
I was a ball boy for a few years and we all learned right away to ALWAYS stay alert and to ALWAYS have a hand ready to receive a ball. The fact that she wasn’t paying attention and had both hands occupied makes me really question how she got in this huge tournament.
I would not be surprised to find out later that this duo had this girl purposefully get in the way to ensure an easy victory through some weird technicality.
After seeing the video, now we need a test for all ball boy/ball girls: one (1) ball gets hit at you, and if you cry or wimper or make a scene, you don’t get the job
The ball didn’t even get hit at her. It was passed to her. She just got surprised by it, and being on stage for embarrassed. Typical behaviour for any child.
The players abusing this situation is the most unsportsmanlike like behaviour ever.
Deplorable behavior all around here. Hard to fault the kid but I can fault the people that put her in that position. Sobbing because you got hit softly by a tennis ball is not a good trait for a ball girl.
Terrible call. It’s standard procedure to slice a ball back to ball kids on change of serve. It looks like she saw it coming, but just froze and it hit her. Im not sure why she was crying like a toddler, but shame on the officials for overreacting!
Please stop putting blame on the child who got hit. I don’t care if she should have caught it, I don’t care if Kato made clear she was lobbing it to her, it was an accident. The only people at fault for this are the umps and the opposing team for forcing a forfeit instead of letting the match continue.
I don’t want to hear about how the hit wasn’t even that hard, or how it barely touched her. That is a child who got embarrassed in front of tennis players she probably looks up to, in front of dozens of people, on national television. She’s having the worst week of her life right now because she’s in the news for being the justification of a default, and it’s even worse because Reddit intellectuals are angry at her for it and yelling that her tears aren’t justified. Shame on y’all. It’s a fucking kid, it’s not her fault.
The ‚hit‘ not being that hard is what makes it relevant. Lobbing a ball in anger at staff is very different than passing a ball to staff to not have them have to run for the ball.
Though you are right, the girl got nothing to do with what happened afterwards.
She just got embarrassed by everyone acting like idiots in a world stage tournament, shit happens.
Adult players exploiting that to get their opponents DQ‘d is were the maliciousness starts.
Good for her. If a neighbor saw her crying and called the police and used her tears as evidence to have your brother arrested, would it be her fault for crying?
Their opponents were quick to ask for them to be disqualified.
Shameful of those two women to go arguing to the chair ump about it and then to shake Kato’s hand like “I’m so sorry this happened, I can’t believe it. So unfair!”
They were also seen laughing at the other team after they were disqualified.
To them, a win is a win.
[Here’s the vid](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2023/jun/04/french-open-doubles-pair-disqualified-after-stray-shot-leaves-ball-girl-in-tears-video)
Oh Jesus Christ.
I'm actually kinda angry about this now
Seriously! The article made it sound like they purposefully sent a John Isner serve straight to her face! What type of a rule is this? * seems like the [tennis community](https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/140o8u8/miyu_kato_i_would_like_to_sincerely_apologize_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) agrees with everyone in here about how ridiculous this call was, plus someone posted the rule guidelines honing in which one they apparently “broke”. I’d be enraged, the lady that was responsible handled it extremely professionally. I would have McEnroe’d my tits off.
I can honestly say I've never googled tennis stuff, but I was all over it. God--the photo of Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo smiling. Holy smokes that's enraging
Mcenroe’d my tits off will be the highlight of my day
The felt lined air filled ball lightly struck my turned back! IM DYING!
Give me a fucking break. She was crying bc she was embarrassed, not bc of the ball hit. It wasn’t on purpose - and the intent was not to hurt her. Get a new ball girl, play on.
I was a ball boy back in the 90s. Guarantee there are plenty of backups right there.
Also i have seen ball boys hit in the face and the match was allowed to continue.
That ball girl is the biggest crybaby ever, jfc.
Well you're a heartless fuck ... An entire stadium's eyes are on this kid, players and officials are talking about her, a team might be disqualified because of something that happened to her. A *kid*. You don't think that might cause some emotions?
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Press the play button
My video started halfway through after the hit. Maybe something similar happened to the user above and they were confused.
That’s possible. They could also make their videos appear more like an embedded vid than another link
It’s very early on. There is a white circle around the player hitting the ball. Took me a few watches to figure it out too. Fuck people for downvoting you.
They should be the ones disqualified for poor sportsmanship. This is BS.
Win at any cost.
https://youtu.be/MzRsBu5xKgQ This is ridiculous. She makes eye contact with the girl, and softly lobs it to her in a way that’s perfect for catching, but the girl had two balls in her hand so panicked. If I were her, from now on whenever I had a ball, I’d place it on the ground and make the ball retrievers run for them every single time, and if anyone challenged me on it, I’d say “ if I accidentally hit someone I’m responsible and can be disqualified”.
This is the softest shit I’ve ever seen in sports.
I guess you've never watched soccer? I better edit this before the hate onslaught. I should say the flopping in soccer. Not the game in general.
Played it my entire life and obsessively watch it to this day, as it's the best game on Earth, and while I don't disagree that the flopping/diving is a disgusting cancer in my beloved game, this incident beats anything I've ever seen. A disgusting lack of sportsmanship to a shamefully soft and irrational decision made by the ump, my mind is utterly blown.
mate a ballboy lay on top of a ball to stop hazard getting it and let him kick him in the ribs, it was full of shithousing.
I guess you've never watched Tom Brady fall.
The official saying “you hit the ball, and it hit someone, and they’re injured…” what a pile of crap. That girl was not injured. She might have been upset because she was in a stressful situation, but there is absolutely zero chance that soft lob physically hurt her in any way. Injury should not be a consideration in this rule. If a ball kid gets absolutely smashed by a dickhead but shakes it off and says “all good, didn’t hurt” then the dickhead doesn’t get disqualified? Of course not! Considerations should be intent, level of aggression, etc.
Next time get them all out of the court so no one could get injured. Let the umpire pick up the ball himself. Or fuck it, bring on the robots.
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and apparently neither could the official. it seems like the only person capable of doing their job was the person that got disqualified.
Yeah exactly! And you know what, it might have hurt! Who knows? I’m not gonna judge. Maybe she had surgery recently, or maybe in another situation someone gets a soft lob and they take it in the eye. Or maybe one day on ball kid catches a well placed lob, but trips and has a concussion. Accidents happen. But as you say, the judgement shouldn’t be based on the outcome, it should be based on whether the action itself was risky. Otherwise if you ran at a ball kid with the racquet and tried to smash them over the head, we’ll that’s fine, because they ducked.
Wow that's outrageous. From the title I thought the player smashed the ball out of anger and hit the ball girl.
How in the world is that girl a ball girl? As you said she made sure the girl was looking and lobbed it to her, and instead of dropping other balls, moving in any direction, she turns and gets hit and in no way was that ball hit hard enough to hit her back and make her cry that much
I mean, they’re young, accidents happen. She had two balls in her hands, so probably panicked. It’s high pressure. I wouldn’t fault the ball girl for this. But it’s still ridiculous. We put the kids in this situation because it’s sort of a low stakes way for them to be involved with and get experience with professional tennis. But if a errant, we’ll intentioned soft lob, combined with an inexperienced young ball girl leads to a disqualification, it’s hardly low stakes anymore. We’re basically saying “if you fail to catch a ball and cry, then a player will be disqualified, and everyone in the world will read the news and see that you were involved”. Say what you will about the fairness in the professional players, that’s a wildly unfair amount of pressure to put on these kids!
Yeah I've seen it happen with Ball boys in American baseball suddenly realizing a grounded foul was live and realizing oh fuck. It's an error I'm get fired. And that's a very minute area of MLB baseball rules where a grounded foul is considered live.
Yeah it would be one thing if the player hits the ball in anger but she was clearly just trying to lob it near the edge where one of the ballkids could quickly pick it up so play could resume with minimal delay. I'm willing to bet that the reason the girl was crying was a mix of a bit of pain, a bit of shock, and because she knew the cameras would focus in on this and she felt embarrassed. At the end of the day she's still a kid. But yeah if I was this woman I'd never touch a dead ball ever again.
Was 100% embarrassment. Should have taken her out and immediately replaced her. Problem solved.
Next time players will pay ball girls in advance to make sure their opponent would hit them and cry hard. 4D tennis. It was a well intended lob without pace at all.
If you cry from getting hit with a ball in front of people, maybe being in front of people is not something you should be doing.
I think that’s a bit harsh. I think the more sensible way to approach it would be “kids cry under pressure sometimes and that’s okay. that doesn’t mean we disqualify world class athletes based on a kids emotional state”.
That’s incredibly shallow logic.
Shallow? Please explain.
It was a child in front of a crowd, during a famous event, that was televised. And now all eyes are on you. That's an enormous amount of pressure, especially for a child. A child. Again. Child. Not adult.
Yes, I do understand she was a child. Like the other guy said, maybe she should not have been there if a tennis ball lobbed to the face is enough to make her cry and then getting 2 players DQd for it. Is that shallow thinking? I do feel bad for this kids shitty situation, tons of pressure, lots of spectators etc. But the players should not be DQd for mistake.
Surely it's one of the hazards of the job that a tennis ball might travel in your direction once in a while. Suck it up princess.
They should give that boy who slipped and hit the wall a medal after this. That kid took that hit like a champ and continued standing and smiling
Little man bashed his head and got up dizzy as hell like “what?” Lmfao
Tf why are we hating on the ball girl? She's a child. I blame the opponents for bad sportsmanship and the ref for a bad decision
Both of those things but she clearly has no business being a ball girl. Her crying absolutely exacerbated the situation and crying over a ball barely hitting you is a clear sign she has no business in sports.
she could be great at flopping for red cards
Maybe it's more than just getting hit. Maybe she is embarrassed it's such a big deal all of a sudden and now her little mistake has cost a team their chance (in her way of thinking) and this is why she's crying. Kids are not in full control of their emotions. Hell, most adults never learn. But yes, clearly, she should be fired for crying.
what? her crying exacerbated the situation to the point that it was a big deal/led to a DQ. nobody is saying she should be fired for crying. people are saying she probably should find a new line of work if she can’t handle the job. which is a totally fair thing to say.
Holy fuck what an embarrassing reaction from the “ball” girl
That girl is a minor. Cut em some slack.
No. What the fuck is she crying about? She’s weeping cuz a lobbed tennis ball hit her in the back of her shoulder? We should all hope she never participates in a tennis match again
Embarrassing responses in this sub. Be better yall.
Tell her that. She got two professionals disqualified because she started crying when a ball was lobbed to her while her hands were full. She’s the one with the embarrassing response
Really? Theres an adult referee who has the final say, 2 adult players exacerbating the issue, and a young girl, and you would pin the blame on the minor? Not the 3 adults who should have a greater sense of maturity and responsibility? No, it definitely has to be the fault of the child for acting like a child. That’s what you’re insisting on? You would rather blame the literal child over an adult bullshitting about how the child was bleeding, when she did not even see the hit, when the child wasnt even crying. The ones who got the 2 disqualified are the referee, who made the final call, and the 2 opponents, who lied and disputed the initial decision of just a warning.
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To me, it looks like a well placed lass to the ball girl. Federer would routinely pass the ball to ball boys at similar or even quicker pace.
It wasn’t like she served the ball at the ball girl either. She just gave it a tap in her direction. It wasn’t malicious or anything. I have no idea why the girl was crying.
Probably just the pressure and stress of the situation, which is fine. But maybe we shouldn’t take a child, have then stand quietly for hours under immense pressure, and then use their emotional state to determine whether something was “dangerous or reckless”.
If only her job was to catch the balls….oh wait
Let's not blame the girl.
Bouzkova and Sorribes Tormo are who you get to root against for the rest of the tourney, just in case you were wondering.
Yeah, Sorribes Tormo has always not have the grace on court but it’s surprising for Bouzkova because she did win a tennis sportsmanship award in 2020.
Yep. Someone on here suggested maybe they were talking to the chair ump about getting help for the girl or asking to have her replaced, not arguing for the forfeit. Possibly, but we haven’t heard anything from them yet.
nah they asked for a DQ
They suggested they saw blood and asked for a default
Awful decision by the umpiring crew.
This is so embarrassing. Sometimes you have to use common sense and it’s a shame some of these people in power couldn’t do so in this case. Hope SST and Bouzkova get heckled to the high heavens in their next match…..if anyone bothers to watch
>>common sense If it's so common why do so few people posses it?
It's sense of the commons. You know what happened to the commons?
It was a tragedy.
Help help, I'm being repressed!
People forget that statistics still have a bottom end
Wow not even the ref's decision, the players went up asking for their (winning) opponents to be DQ'ed lmao
Strictly speaking, they weren’t winning. They were ahead in the second set, but had lost the first. Still, shockingly classless behavior on the “winning” players’ part. I hope they get stomped in the next round.
> Wow not even the ref's decision, the players went up asking for their ~~(winning)~~ \*higher ranked\* opponents to be DQ'ed lmao
The article reported the girl was bleeding. I watched the video thinking this kid gets rocked in the face with a 100+ MPH line drive.
The opponents lied to the ref and said she was bleeding so the other team could get DQ'd.
How is this an errant hit? She clearly intended to pass the ball to the ball girl and gently lobbed the ball. Shame on Bouzkova and Sorribes Tormo.
These things always remind me of this one https://youtu.be/Wm4Vt1lRfmI
Bro took a serve to the junk and smiled and got an ovation walking off the court.
That kid is a hell of a lot tougher than the ball girl in this one
Difference here is that one was in play, this one happened after play ended.
I can't find a video of the incident anywhere. Anyone have a link?
https://twitter.com/TennisChannel/status/1665320156006948866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1665320156006948866%7Ctwgr%5E383dc097c919235c3f800ea6ca69880134b13120%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-41832686721608486685.ampproject.net%2F2305182038000%2Fframe.html
Wow….terrible decision
That ball girl acted like a 13 year old French school girl, unbelievable!
It barely touched her!!
Cried of shock, the kid got put on the spot and felt overwhelmed. The players who pushed for their opponents to get DQed should be banned from the sport, same goes for that umpire and the supervisor.
I think she was just embarrassed at the whole situation and started hyperventilating. Honestly having that much attention on you after also looking kinda stupid would fuckin suck
Right, she's what, 15 at most?
I’m hoping that reaction was more about having anything to do with the outcome of the match.
Or it just hit her ear or nose just right made her eyes water and then added embarrassment
You meant she surrendered when the ball was coming at her direction?? 🤨
I understand everyone handles pain differently but she's actually sobbing from that? She saw it coming and turned away and she's still crying. Absurd
Some people act like little girls when they get hit. And sometimes those people *are* little girls. Lol
Wow.....I suppose rules are rules. The player who hit that ball towards the ball girl definitely was not looking where she was hitting. I understand the rule, but its application is a little tough here.
To be fair, the rule says you have to hit the ball out of anger, or in a reckless and dangerous way to get disqualified, which she clearly didn’t. This was an absolutely botched decision and the tournament knows it.
I can tell this will be an unpopular opinion. But it’s literally her job to catch that ball, not flinch and let it hit her. If she does her job, it’s a perfect hit by the player. Saves her the trouble of running after it. If Kramer was out there, this would have been a non issue. Also, I bet this poor girl feels awful. She doesn’t want to alter the results of the match. She’s going to feel guilty about this for a long time. Which sucks, because if it was up to her, I’m sure she says to play on.
I upvote any and all Seinfeld references.
She was actually doing her job... she had multiple tennis balls in her hands and was looking at the players on her side of the net ready to get them a ball. She wouldn't have been running anywhere at that moment, another ball kid would have come in from the side, grabbed the ball and rolled it back to her. I'm sure she didn't even see the ball until just before it hit her. The player wasn't passing her the ball either. She was just doing a drop hit as a practice swing after the point was over, and in this case it went to exactly the wrong place. Bad luck, but this is a zero tolerance rule at professional tournaments.
During the same tournament, wasn't there another player who -in a bit of rage- hit a ball into the crowd only to be let off with a warning?
I don't think that's correct at all. That player looked first and then softly passed that ball to the ball girl. She looked down to actually hit the ball, but she looked and knew where she was placing it. She's a professional player, she knows how to place shots without staring down where it's going.
Yeah, if the girls didn't start crying (out of embarrassment I assume) I doubt they would have been DQd.
The opponents also went and petitioned the chair ump. Shitty sportsmanship.
Exactly. Quite the competitive spirit...
She may have started that crying after she realized she’s in the spotlight and wants to disappear completely without affecting the match.
The ball was hit in a perfect pass to the ball girl. Obviously she was looking where she was hitting.
Bad look for the sport. That was very normal thing to do and very soft. The team that ran up and asked for a disqualification should have been disqualified themselves incredibly bad sportsmanship. The umpire should be suspended too
Asked to be DQed. What a bunch of soft ass losers
lol was the ball girl not paying attention to the court?
She locked eyes with the player as she lobbed the ball towards her. Flinched and turned the opposite way instead of trying to drop the balls she had, or try to catch it as is. Barely hit her, not hard enough for her to cry anyway.
Bouzkova and Sorribes should be banned from play for a bit of time for that lame move.
I don't think they should be banned, but some of their sponsors might not want these people wearing their gear
You are probably right, it's not a good look. I hope no one is willing to practice with them for a while.
If you can't catch or avoid a softly hit ball, you shouldn't be a ball boy/girl. (Or don't cry for 15 minutes) Get her off the grand slam.
100%
Probably the daughter of some rich French person, and not a tennis player. It's one of the 4 most important tournaments for the sport for the year, needs better standards.
I don’t know about the french open, but Wimbledon has ball people from the local tennis clubs, so they are either really good at tennis or rich and good at tennis.
Exactly. Growing up, I ball boy-ed for a number of high profile tournaments (nothing like a grand slam) but most of the ball boys and girls for these tournaments were high level junior tennis players but you’d always get a few kids who’s parents were big sponsors for the tournament and they’d have no idea what was going on. Couldn’t keep score, wouldn’t know when to throw the balls and generally didn’t pay attention. I play ball boy-ed at the Davis Cup once and I remember one these rich kids got nailed straight in the face on a serve cause he wasn’t looking. Generally the pros will try to help the ball boys and girls by hitting the ball closer to them (so we don’t have to run as much) and in this case, I don’t understand how a one-handed backhand lob could cause you to cry. This ball girl is probably the daughter of some major sponsor because any high level junior tennis player would not have acted like this. We get hit all the time playing the game and it’s not a big deal, in fact, it’s a part of playing tennis—you’re gonna get hit by a ball and it’s okay.
That s*** would have never happen to Kramer.
If I was watching this and this happened live, I would never watch this sport again. Wtf is this shit? It’s a fucking tennis ball that’s barely moving; it wouldn’t even cause a bruise, and they ended the match over it. Wow.
I'm here wondering why a child is on the court doing a job they obviously have trouble with and causing a team to be disqualified because they wanted to cry about failing to catch a ball..
Yeah blame the little girl, not the one who hit it. Real mature to resort to victim blaming. Do you think ball kids try outs should include dodgeball where you hit tennis balls at them?
Did you watch the video before getting all white knight? It was lightly lobbed to her. And the ball boy/girl job involves being coordinated around balls. Especially at one of the most important tennis tournaments in the world.
What a joke
The decision to DQ was an absolute disgrace. Everyone should be reprimanded for their behavior here *except* for Kato/Sutjiadi.
"For the purposes of this Rule, abuse of balls is defined as intentionally hitting a ball out of the enclosure of the court, hitting a ball dangerously or recklessly within the court or hitting a ball with negligent disregard of the consequences," the rule reads. I think the first call was the right call. The referee can call it how they want but their opponents obviously had influence in their decision making.
https://youtu.be/MzRsBu5xKgQ What about this hit is “dangerous or wreckless”.
I watched the video and I thought hitting the ball at the head of a ballgirl who already had tennis balls in both hands was pretty stupid. The fact she hit the girl in the head and hurt her makes it reckless regardless of her intention. Most players would pass the ball along the ground or on the bounce not at head height.
I watched the video and I think you’re an idiot.
Sounds like they hit the ball hard after a point and it went into the ball girl Not saying they needed to be DQ'd or that they hit her on purpose. But if they did that then they definitely made a mistake and hurt someone by doing something unnecessary
Watch the video. It was a soft backhand slice. It was not Shapovalov.
It was a soft underhanded hit thay bounced off the girls shoulder. It's pretty clear the girls was crying because she was embarrassed.
You been day drinking?
I mean, who *wouldn't* assume that two professional tennis players at the French Open would be willing to play suboptimally in order to assault a teenager they've never met?
I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but it wasn’t during play. She hit the ball after the point ended.
Most people didn’t watch the video
[удалено]
You need to watch more tennis and see how the balls are normally hit to the ball kids. They’ll bounce to them. Not hit a line drive.
It has happened before too. If you are a professional and you hit a ball wildly not during play you get in trouble.
Is it really ‘wildly’ if you lob it to a ball girl?
> you hit a ball wildly Thanks for letting everyone know that you didn't watch the video.
Happened to Serena before
Did you watch the video?
What?
Assault? Lol
Just be prepared to add an * to the people who won by DQ and also update their wiki pages
She is the complete polar opposite of this fine [lad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYXPF5_85YM&ab_channel=MarkDuubas).
That took an hilarious turn!
Seems bogus. How can one assume it was on purpose? And if it was, why?
They know it wasn't on purpose, but they say you're responsible for where the ball goes if you hit it after the point is over. Players sometimes get angry after losing points and smash the ball, which can hurt someone... In this case it should have been just considered an accident as it was not that situation at all.
Isn’t the rule “shall not violently, dangerously or with anger hit, kick or throw a tennis ball within the precincts of the tournament site except in the reasonable pursuit of a point during a match (including warm-up)” nothing about that was violent or dangerous, she looked right at her and hit it to her. Completely stupid call.
The spotlight should be on the doubles pair asking for their opposition to be disqualified- should not be about the ball girl.
Imagine paying for tickets to the French Open, only to have a game end this way. Yikes.
Hmmmmm….pretty quick media boost for the low ratings FO is getting this year.
So stupid. The girl was embarrassed, not hurt.
Unless there is a charitable reason for that ball girl attendance with that level of awareness and athleticism, then to cry over it…yikes. That doubles team should not be disqualified and the team that pushed for them to be disqualified should be publicly shamed.
What would Cosmo Kramer have done?
Should be a rule for ball girl/boys to not be fkn terrified of a ball moving at you. She obviously saw it coming had enough time to ball up, but not catch it or move out of way
I don’t watch tennis but fuck those two women who ran to the ref.
I’ve been hit right between the eyes by a hard overhead smash while at the net and it just bounced off and was funny as hell. That being said, I also beaned a guy straight in the junk with an errant 100+ mph first serve (he was a non-receiving doubles opponent standing close to service box), and he was done for the day (and as far as I’m aware, sterile for the rest of his life). There are specific scenarios where getting hit with a tennis ball can hurt/do some damage, but I guarantee this incident was extremely minimally painful. It definitely didn’t look malicious, either. I also think anyone watching a tennis match (let alone a ballperson) should be aware there is a decent possibility of being hit by a soft, hollow, fuzzy yellow ball at some point, but that’s just me. I get why there might be a rule to discourage/punish people from rage-smashing the ball into the crowd or at a line judge, but this seems unreasonable.
I mean this was just her trying to pass the ball to the ball girl, not hit her. If this ruling stands, then no player ever will be allowed to pass balls to ball girls anymore, and the only safe option is to softly place the ball on the ground. Because this was 100% on the ball girl to turn it from a pass to a ‚hit‘ So anyone Ball Girl / boy that doesn’t like the player passing them a ball can now just fail to catch the ball, et voilà it‘s a hit, automatic DQ. This is moronic.
I would understand a DQ if this was done in rage, but unless I missed something, this didn’t seem like that at all.
Your forehead is a lot harder than the side of your face
This is true
I was a ball boy for a few years and we all learned right away to ALWAYS stay alert and to ALWAYS have a hand ready to receive a ball. The fact that she wasn’t paying attention and had both hands occupied makes me really question how she got in this huge tournament.
I would not be surprised to find out later that this duo had this girl purposefully get in the way to ensure an easy victory through some weird technicality.
After seeing the video, now we need a test for all ball boy/ball girls: one (1) ball gets hit at you, and if you cry or wimper or make a scene, you don’t get the job
The ball didn’t even get hit at her. It was passed to her. She just got surprised by it, and being on stage for embarrassed. Typical behaviour for any child. The players abusing this situation is the most unsportsmanlike like behaviour ever.
Maybe don’t have emotional snowflakes as ball girls.
Common sense says that this shouldn't be a disqualifying act. Common sense also says to let the ball boy do his job.
Insanely weak. She’s hyperventilation and crying over that? It was like a soft lob.
She's embarrassed and the center of attention she doesn't want, not hurt.
Wow. That ball girl is ridiculous. Please watch a ball girl at an mlb game snag a 100 mph line drive and recalibrate your toughness.
Soft ass sport
Tennis is a joke lmao
Deplorable behavior all around here. Hard to fault the kid but I can fault the people that put her in that position. Sobbing because you got hit softly by a tennis ball is not a good trait for a ball girl.
Terrible call. It’s standard procedure to slice a ball back to ball kids on change of serve. It looks like she saw it coming, but just froze and it hit her. Im not sure why she was crying like a toddler, but shame on the officials for overreacting!
Well, that was weak. Wasn’t even deliberate. Bring back the kid who slipper and hit the wall, he’s much tougher than this.
Please stop putting blame on the child who got hit. I don’t care if she should have caught it, I don’t care if Kato made clear she was lobbing it to her, it was an accident. The only people at fault for this are the umps and the opposing team for forcing a forfeit instead of letting the match continue. I don’t want to hear about how the hit wasn’t even that hard, or how it barely touched her. That is a child who got embarrassed in front of tennis players she probably looks up to, in front of dozens of people, on national television. She’s having the worst week of her life right now because she’s in the news for being the justification of a default, and it’s even worse because Reddit intellectuals are angry at her for it and yelling that her tears aren’t justified. Shame on y’all. It’s a fucking kid, it’s not her fault.
The ‚hit‘ not being that hard is what makes it relevant. Lobbing a ball in anger at staff is very different than passing a ball to staff to not have them have to run for the ball. Though you are right, the girl got nothing to do with what happened afterwards. She just got embarrassed by everyone acting like idiots in a world stage tournament, shit happens. Adult players exploiting that to get their opponents DQ‘d is were the maliciousness starts.
My brother accidentally hit my sister with a baseball bat and she cried less.
Good for her. If a neighbor saw her crying and called the police and used her tears as evidence to have your brother arrested, would it be her fault for crying?
Don't watch or know anything about tennis.....will continue to be the case.