British tennis player Cameron Norrie has apologized after throwing his racket and accidentally striking a spectator during a 6-2, 6-3 loss to Facundo Díaz Acosta at the Auckland Classic.
The former world No. 8 tossed his racket backwards in frustration having netted to put Díaz Acosta on match point, causing a spectator to have to raise her hands to stop it from striking her in the face.
Norrie received a warning but avoided disqualification for the incident, which the spectator appeared to take in good spirits.
“I apologized to the woman, and she was okay … it barely touched her and she was laughing. But I didn’t mean to do that, and it was definitely a wake-up call,” he told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) following the match. “I wanted to come here and play well, and it ended up being the complete opposite.
“I was not feeling comfortable. I was throwing my racket, that’s not like me at all,” he continued.
“As we saw with some other players, you can easily be defaulted if it catches them in the wrong spot or they’re not looking or something,” the 29-year-old added, according to The Guardian. “I was not meaning to do that and it is completely 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 behaved.”
Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the 2020 US Open when he accidentally hit a ball at a line judge. Similarly, Denis Shapovalov was defaulted in 2017 when he struck the umpire with a ball during a Davis Cup tie against Great Britain.
However, at Wimbledon in 2022, Stefanos Tsitsipas was fined $10,000 but avoided disqualification after he hit a ball into the stands during a fiery third-round match against Nick Kyrgios.
Díaz Acosta will face his Argentine compatriot Sebastián Báez in the Round of 16. Norrie, who grew up in Auckland, is next in action at the Australian Open, having reached the fourth round of the tournament last year before he was knocked out by Alexander Zverev.