Irina Camelia Begu closed her racket and made a baby cry and angered the public and her rival

The norm of tennis players unleash anger on their rackets when making mistakes in games is no longer new, although so far there seems to be an “epidemic” of cases of that bad habit. The latter took place this Thursday at Roland Garros, in a second-round duel for the women’s team on court 13 of the Parisian complex. And the unfortunate hero is Irina Camelia Begu63rd in the world ranking.

Because the fight was tied to the sets and after losing his service at the hands of his rival, the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, in the second game of the third set, the Romanian came to his side to change the racket. And upset about how the midterm trend is, He threw to the ground what was in his hand, without strength, but unfortunately it bounced off the chair and flew towards the rostrum, where he was about to hit a child.

The baby began to cry and needed a few minutes to calm down. Begu approached to make sure he was okay, as did the umpire, who after consulting with the child’s parents, called the supervisor. Later, some witnesses said the racket did not hit the child, but it gave him tremendous fear. Perhaps for this reason, after assessing the situation, the Romanian received a warning for violating the code with unsportsmanlike conduct.

The decision left some of the spectators unhappy, and as the players prepared to continue playing, boos and whistles were heard. And even his rival, who did not hide his anger. Moreover, after Begu was broken in the third game, once they could get back on the court, Alexandrova threw the ball out of the court and scolded the umpire: “I can do that too”. In response, he also received a warning.

Begu, far from losing concentration, won five of the next seven games and ended up going 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4, to advance to the third round, where they will face off. the local leolia jeanjean.

After sealing the victory, he again approached the area of ​​the stands where the child was, again apologized and even ended up taking a picture with the child.

“It’s been an embarrassing moment for me. I don’t want to talk about it too much. I just want to apologize. I’ve never done anything like this in my entire career. I feel really bad and sorry. I can only say I’m sorry for the incident. When you throw the racket against the ground, you never expect it to travel there. I’d rather end it and apologize, “said the 31-year-old Romanian and doubles semifinalist in the French Grand Slam last year with Nadia Podoroska.

‘Epidemic’ of rackets

Begu is the second event of its kind happening at Roland Garros. On Tuesday, Andrey Rublev had his head amputated, as he later admitted, after giving up a tie break in the first set of his first round against the South Korean. Soonwoo Kwon.

The Russian, number seven in the world, hit the ball so hard in his seat that the ball bounced and almost hit one of the keepers who passed the rake to the ground between the two sets, with great reflexes to evade impact.

So far this season, Australian Nick Kyrgios has accidentally hit a boy on the pitch stand in a doubles match at the Australian Open and “fixed” it by giving the boy his racket.

German Alexander Zverev, third in the ranking, took it even more seriously, who after losing in the doubles match in Acapulco, several times his racket hit the match judge’s chair, where he was not included in the Mexican tournament.

Kyrgios was also at the center of controversy in Indian Wells, when he dropped his racket and hit a ballboy. And so is the American Jenson Brooksby in his duel against Federico Coria in Miami.

This series of incidents has caused many voices to be raised asking the ATP and the WTA to punish this kind of attitude more severely. And although organizations have expressed themselves concerned about the number of cases, what happened at Roland Garros made it clear that, in this sense, there is still a long way to go.