With all good spirits abandoned, Cameron Norrie throws a racket into the audience at the preparatory tournament in Auckland and promptly hits a spectator. Meanwhile, Gaël Monfils treats the fans Down Under to a show-stopping performance.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Cameron Norrie loses his nerve at the Australian Open preparation tournament in Auckland and throws his racket into the audience.
- No one is hurt and the Brit gets off with a warning. Shortly afterwards, he loses the match anyway.
- At the same tournament, Gaël Monfils plays great and reaches the quarter-finals. On the way there, he also entertains the crowd with a seemingly silly hunt for a paper bag.
- The Australian Open begins on January 12. For some Swiss players, however, things are already getting serious as they still have to qualify for the main draw.
For Cameron Norrie, the preparatory tournament for the Australian Open in Auckland ends in the round of 16. The British world number 48 was defeated 2:6 and 3:6 by Facundo Diaz Acosta from Argentina, who was ranked 30 places lower.
With his back to the wall, Norrie puts a return into the net - match point instead of break point. Annoyed by his miss, the 29-year-old throws his racquet away and hits a spectator sitting in the front row.
The chair umpire leaves it at a warning, but Norrie should not have complained about an exclusion. However, he lost the game a short time later anyway, so the tournament was over for him.
"A wake-up call for me"
Norrie immediately apologized to the spectator and after the match he shed some light on the situation in front of the media: "She was barely hit and could laugh about it. Of course I didn't want to hit her, but it wasn't ideal of me. It was definitely a wake-up call for me." It wasn't a big deal, but he was aware that an action like that could go less smoothly.
At the 2020 US Open, for example, Novak Djokovic was disqualified after hitting a ball away and hitting a line judge in the process. Daniil Medvedev also lost his nerve in September last year.
At the Laver Cup, things went anything but smoothly for the Russian against the American and, after losing a service game, he threw his racket across the hall and almost hit a photographer. Although he was not disqualified for this, as team captain John McEnroe had done, he did receive a point penalty.
Monfils knows how to entertain the crowd
When Frenchman Gaël Monfils is in action, the audience usually enjoys a great show. The 38-year-old did not disappoint the fans in Auckland either. Thanks in part to a series of magic shots, he reaches the quarter-finals in Auckland, where he meets Norrie conqueror Acosta. Monfils also provided some laughs with a little bit of comedy in which he chased after a paper bag blown away by the wind on the court and was unable to pick it up.
Three Swiss women in the final qualifying round
Three Swiss women - Viktorija Golubic, Rebeka Masarova and Jil Teichmann - are through to the final round of qualifying for the Australian Open. Jérôme Kym is eliminated.
