Cameron Norrie: British tennis player throws racket into crowd in angry Auckland Classic defeat | Tennis news
Britain’s Cameron Norrie avoided disqualification for throwing his racket into the crowd during a two-set loss at the Auckland Classic.
Norrie vented his frustration after a poor forehand return hit the net to give opponent Facundo Diaz Acosta match point as the Argentine sealed a 6-2 6-3 win.
The spectator was hit by the racket, but not hard, and suffered no injuries, with Norrie only getting a warning from the chair.
Novak Djokovic was controversially disqualified from the 2020 US Open after accidentally hitting a linesman with the ball, but Stefanos Tsitsipas avoided being sent off by hitting the ball into the Wimbledon 2022 crowd in his fiery match with Nick Kyrgios.
“I didn’t mean to do it, but it’s still not ideal to do it and I’ve never done anything like that,” Norris said.
“She was laughing and I just said ‘sorry, I didn’t mean to do that’. And she said ‘yeah, I’m totally OK’.
“It wasn’t a big deal. But like we’ve seen with some of the other players, you can easily lose if he catches them in the wrong spot or if they’re not looking or something.
“I didn’t mean to do that and it’s totally not for me to do something like that. I apologized very quickly and I want to apologize in general. I’m not happy with how I behaved.”
Norrie has struggled with injuries throughout 2024, missing North American action over the summer, including the US Open.
However, he made a solid start to 2025 by reaching the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open last week and will now head to Melbourne for the Australian Open, which starts on Sunday.
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