Was it a bee? Tennis player Stefanos Tsitsipas first batted his racket around. Then he discovered the cause of the buzzing behind him.
During a tennis match in Cincinnati, tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas was disturbed in a bizarre way. It’s almost the norm for spectators to shout out to the players now and then. But one woman in particular annoyed the player.
First, in the second set against the American Ben Shelton, it looked as if Tsitsipas was trying to chase away a pesky insect with his racket. Twice he broke off the movement on his serve. But then he strode to the umpire’s chair.
The umpire wanted to know what was bothering him. “There is a person imitating a bee behind me. I hear a buzzing just before my serve. Is that okay?” asked the Greek, once ranked third in the world.
He turned towards the audience, as can be seen on video footage, and looked for the originator. And from there there was help: a fan pointed to a woman sitting in the front row. Tsitsipas demanded that the troublemaker be thrown out. But the referee left it at a warning and a request to stop the buzzing. The woman then apologised to the athlete.
Without the distraction, Tsitsipas found his way back into the match and won 7:6, 7:6. In the last 16, he will face Hubert Hurkacz of Poland.
