Roland-Garros: Begu bounces racquet into stands, misses kid, avoids default, wins in three sets

A racquet bounced in ager landed up in the stands at Roland-Garros on Thursday but Irina-Camelia Begu managed to avoid a default and fight back for a three-set win in Paris

irina-Camelia Begu_Roland-Garros_2022

Haresh Ramchandani

May 26, 2022

It was an eventful day on Court 13 at Roland-Garros for Romanian tennis player Irina-Camelia Begu. The world No 63 lost the first set of her second round match against 30th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, fought back to win the second set and went down a break in the third set.

That’s when the match got very dramatic. Down an early break at 2-0 in the third set, Begu missed a shot on the first point of the third game and threw her racquet on her chair, which bounced off and went into the stands, just missing a kid.

Irina-Camelia Begu just bounced her racket into the crowd, supervisor has been called. pic.twitter.com/EiIBNDAH2I
— Damian Kust (@damiankust) May 26, 2022

The match was halted and the tournament supervisor called as Begu wondered if she would be defaulted from the match.

Horrible scenes as Begu's racquet went flying into the crowd. I don't know how she was allowed to continue? @rolandgarros #Begu pic.twitter.com/ipjqBlYPL2
— Ella Ling (@EllaLing23) May 26, 2022

However, she was not, much to the ire of Alexandrova, and given a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct.

And she breaks back right after…

Ekaterina very upset, throws a ball outside the court. “So I can do that to”.

Gets a code violation (like Begu), crowd boos. Dramatic scenes
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) May 26, 2022

Begu managed to break back and then fight back to win six of the final eight games and complete the 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 win in two hours and 35 minutes to reach the third round.

After the match, Begu did make some amends as she took the kid in her arms and posed for a picture with him.

https://twitter.com/MySugarpova/status/1529794311487107073

This is not the first time that a player throwing a racquet on court has landed them in a hot soup. During his first round win, Andrey Rublev threw his racquet in frustration which he ended up deeply regretting.

Earlier this year, American Jenson Brooksby‘s racquet found its way to a ball kid while Nick Kyrgios‘ racquet missed another ball kid by the smallest of margins during the Indian Wells-Miami stretch.