The controversial incident at Roland Garros saw Kato and Sutjiadi disqualified after a ball girl was struck by a ball and began to cry; initially the umpire only sought to warn the pair but after their opponents protested, he went over and spoke to the girl and changed his decision
Sunday 4 June 2023 15:09, UK
Japan's Miyu Kato and Indonesia's Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified from the French Open after Kato struck a ball down the court between points and hit a ball girl.
The incident happened during their women's doubles third-round match at Roland Garros on Sunday.
Kato and her Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi, the 16th seeds, were leading Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo 7-6 (7-1) 1-3 in the third round of the women's doubles when the Japanese player hit the ball down to the other end of the court at the end of a point.
Unaware that the ball was coming, the ball girl was struck directly on the head and began crying.
Umpire Alexandre Juge initially gave Kato a warning before Bouzkova and Sorribes Tormo, on the other side of the net, asked for their opponents to be disqualified.
"No, no, let me explain to you. She [Kato] didn't do it on purpose, she [the ball girl] didn't get injured," Juge said.
"She didn't do it on purpose? She's crying," Sorribes Tormo said.
"And she has blood," Bouzkova added, prompting the umpire to go to see the ball girl, who was sobbing.
After speaking to the girl, the umpire went back up to his chair and announced the end of the match with the disqualification of Kato and Sutjiadi.
Bouzkova said afterwards: "Obviously we've had some of these issues before. It's difficult. The girl was crying for 15 minutes. I think the warning first happened because he (the umpire) didn't see she was crying and she was in that kind of pain.
"We told him he should look more into because the girl was crying and the ball went directly at her, it wasn't kind of a slower ball. We told them (Kato and Sutjiadi) it's very unfortunate."
The incident comes a day after 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva admitted she feared she would be defaulted after she angrily swiped a ball into the crowd during her singles match with Coco Gauff.
It is three years, meanwhile, since Novak Djokovic was defaulted from the US Open after hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball swatted away in annoyance.
