Cameron Norrie threw his racket in frustration during his ASB Classic defeat to Facundo Diaz, with the British tennis star accidentally striking a female spectator
Cameron Norrie sparked controversy at the ASB Classic when he accidentally lobbed his racket into the crowd following a frustrating performance.
The British tennis star, who was raised in Auckland, found himself struggling in his first match against Facundo Diaz at the event. In a moment of anger after miscuing a shot that gave Diaz match point in the second set, Norrie hurled his racket which ended up in the stands.
A sharp-eyed female fan managed to avoid getting hit squarely in the face, instead catching the racket as Norrie immediately went over to apologise before going on to suffer a 6-2, 6-3 loss.
The incident only led to a warning from the chair umpire for Norrie, despite similar incidents resulting in severe fines for others. Terence Atmane faced a hefty fine of around £20,000 last May for inadvertently hitting a spectator with a ball at the French Open.
In the previous year’s edition of the same tournament, a blunder by Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi in the women’s doubles saw them disqualified after Kato struck a ball girl. Perhaps most notably, Novak Djokovic was ejected from the US Open in 2020 after unintentionally hitting a line judge with a ball.
After the match, Norrie acknowledged the seriousness of his actions, conceding that he had been fortunate. “I wasn’t meaning to do that but it’s still not ideal to be doing that and I’ve never done something like that,” the 29-year-old said.
“[The spectator] was laughing and I just said, ‘so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ And she said, ‘yeah, I’m completely OK.’ That was not a big deal.
“But 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.
“I was not meaning to do that and it is completely not me to do something like that. I apologised very quickly and I want to apologise in general. I’m not happy with how I behaved.”
Elsewhere in the round of 32, sixth-seeded Flavio Cobolli retired in his ASB Classic match against fellow Italian Luca Nardi after dropping the first set 6-2. Alex Michelsen, Lorenzo Sonego and Mariano Navone all won their matches.