Irina-Camelia Begu has reached the third round of the French Open. However, the Romanian caused a scandal during her second-round win over Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova
Romanian tennis player Irina-Camelia Begu narrowly escaped disqualification on Thursday. In her second round match against Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, Begu had shuffled to the sidelines to change her racket at 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 0-2.
Supervisor comes on court
As she did so, she threw her old racket onto the sandy floor in such a way that it flew into the audience with a bouncer – scaring a little boy so badly. that he burst into tears. Whether it was because of the shock or because he was slightly hit is not clear from the TV pictures.
The referee was forced to call the supervisor, who now had to decide whether Begu was allowed to continue playing. The latter got off with a warning in the end as she had not thrown the bat into the audience out of anger.
“It is very unpleasant for me, so I don’t want to talk too much about it. I just want to apologise,” the Romanian said after the match. “In my whole career I haven’t done anything like that. I feel really bad and I’m sorry. “
In any case, the incident in the third set did nothing to dampen Begu’s athletic performance on the court – on the contrary. She turned the match around, winning 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4 and will now face local heroine Léolia Jeanjean, who bowled top ten player Karolina Pliskova out of the tournament, in the third round on Saturday.
On Friday, Angelique Kerber and Alexander Zverev will be the last two German representatives to play in Paris. Zverev will face Brandon Nakashima from the US, while Kerber will take on Belarusian Alyaksandra Sasnovich.