This year’s French Open hasn’t been without some drama. The most notable issue came when Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified after Kato sent a ball back to the other end of the court and it accidentally hit a ball girl.
The umpire only gave her a warning but opponent Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo called on them to be defaulted because the ball girl was in tears. The supervisor took to the court and the 16th seeds were disqualified.
Andreeva narrowly avoided the same fate in her third-round loss to Coco Gauff as she received a code violation for firing a ball into the stands, though it didn’t hit anyone. And Yoshihito Nishioka received a point penalty in his own third-round match when he checked a ball mark by crossing the net – something against the tennis rules.
It’s not the first year that stars have landed themselves in hot water at Roland Garros, as Irina-Camelia Begu received the biggest fine of the tournament last year at £8,059 ($10,000). She threw a racket in frustration during a match against Ekaterina Alexandrova.
But it flew up and hit a child in the face, leaving the young boy in tears. The match stopped as the referee came to discuss the matter with Begu, the chair umpire and the child’s family before the Romanian was slapped with a code violation and, later, the fine.
Andrey Rublev was also hit with a big fine 12 months ago when he threw a drink on the court and smacked a ball in frustration. Like compatriot Andreeva this year, the world No 7 was lucky not to be defaulted as the ball narrowly missed hitting the groundsman near him. He was billed £6.4k ($8k).
In 2021, Naomi Osaka received one of the most notable fines in recent tennis history. Then ranked No 2 in the world she refused to attend her press conferences to protect her mental health. She was fined £12k ($15k) and threatened with disqualification from the tournament, as well as from other Grand Slam tournaments.
The four-time Major champion ended up pulling out of the tournament instead and also skipped Wimbledon. But her case appears to have triggered a change in the rules as Aryna Sabalenka has refused to attend her last two press conferences at this year’s French Open and been supported by the WTA and the French Tennis Federation.
The second seed clashed with one Ukrainian reporter in her first two press conferences as she was asked to condemn the war and quizzed over previous links with President Lukashenko. And she has not attended a conference since, citing the need to protect her mental health and saying she felt unsafe during the presser that came after her second-round match.
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