Call for video replays after ball-girl row
Decision-makers ‘should be able to look at pictures first’ Kato reduced to tears when asked about harsh default
Japanese doubles player Miyu Kato, who was defaulted from the French Open for hitting a ball girl in the neck with a stray ball, could not contain her tears when she entered the interview room yesterday.
Most observers considered the penalty to be extremely harsh, as Kato had merely been passing the ball back to the girl, rather than swatting it aside in anger in the manner of Novak Djokovic at the 2020 US Open.
But supervisor Wayne Mckewen insisted that Kato could not continue, and she will now lose any points or prize money she might have earned from the women’s doubles event in Paris.
A day after Sunday’s default, Kato found herself back on the same court – 14 – to play a mixed doubles match alongside German Tim Puetz. They came through 7-6, 6-2, against Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos.
Puetz said: “I’m happy that we can add some good memories instead of just leaving Paris with that really c----y feeling with what happened yesterday.”
Puetz was doing most of the speaking because Kato was unable to express herself in English, partly because of a language barrier but also because of her powerful emotions.
Asked how she felt about returning to Court 14, Kato had to leave the interview room to compose herself. When she came back, she tried to answer through the medium of a Japanese reporter, who translated.
“She said that when she came to the site today many players came over to her saying, ‘Put your face ahead, and we are all support [sic] you, following you’,” the reporter explained.
Even though Puetz had not been present for the default, he made several cogent points, especially when suggesting that video replays should be used for these sorts of rulings.
“I think everybody saw the pictures,” Puetz said. “It wasn’t anything malicious that she did. Nevertheless, it hit the ball girl.
“Then two supervisors have to come on court, possibly didn’t even see it. All they see is a crying ball girl who got hit with a ball. In that moment to make that decision is very difficult.
“While I don’t necessarily agree with it, I think I can understand how you would get to that decision. To not have the option to look at the pictures – I think that possibly might be something we can add in today’s day and age, especially on big courts like that.
“Yeah, I think it’s just overall really unfortunate, especially for the girl who got hit – who probably didn’t have a great day yesterday – and also for Miyu, of course, and her partner [Aldila Sutjiadi]. A terrible situation.”
On social media, much of the reaction focused on the conduct of the Japanese women’s opponents, Marie Bouzkova and Sara Sorribes Tormo. They encouraged chair umpire Alexandre Juge to apply the default rule, although the decision was not actually taken until after supervisor Mckewen had arrived on court.
Yesterday, Sorribes Tormo lost a 3hr 51min singles match – the longest to be played on the women’s tour this year – 7-6, 3-6, 5-7 against Beatriz Haddad Maia. When questioned later about Sunday’s doubles match, she replied: “First of all, it’s a very bad situation that happened yesterday. Also, for Marie and for me it’s tough to have all this kind of things that people are saying. It’s not easy because the only thing we’ve done yesterday was going to the referee and explain to him what happened.
“So, first of all, we were saying that the ball kid was crying, because we were scared, because we were [saying], ‘Oh, something happened’. Then we were saying that the ball was direct because he didn’t see the ball.
“All the rest, the decision was taken by the supervisor, and I think it’s not our thing or we haven’t done anything bad. Yeah, that’s the only thing I’m going to say about what happened yesterday.”
Kato is thought to have appealed against the default – in the hope of retrieving at least some prize money and rankings points – but tournament officials had yet to confirm this last night.