Lorenzo Musetti avoided being defaulted from his quarter-final match against Frances Tiafoe after unintentionally kicking a ball that hit a line judge.
The incident took place during the second set of Musetti’s 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, victory. A ball boy threw a ball to the Italian which was too low for him to pick up and instead, he kicked it towards the back of the court, accidentally hitting a female line judge. He received a code violation from the umpire but wasn’t given a harsher penalty. The reason why is because the official rulebook states a player can only be defaulted if their action caused ‘clear harm.’
“It was a really unlucky coincidence. I was honestly a little bit scared because I didn’t want to harm anybody, of course,” Musetti said during his press conference.
“So I immediately went to the line umpire, and I Sorry. I apologize to everyone.
“It was right to have a warning but I think the umpire saw that there was no intention about that, and that’s why (the umpire) probably just let me continue my game.”
Musetti’s incident has been compared with that of Novak Djokovic, who was disqualified from his match at the 2020 US Open. On that occasion, the 24-time Grand Slam champion hit a ball that struck a line judge in the neck. She subsequently dropped to the floor and was checked over. The match umpire concluded there was ‘clear harm’ caused even though it was completely accidental.
Another example took place at the French Open two years ago when Japan’s Miyu Kato hit a ball girl with a ball. This again was accidental but the ball girl was said to be ‘visibly distressed’ which then triggered the ‘clear harm’ case.
However, sometimes there are fine lines between such incidents which are at the discretion of the match officials (who base their decisions on the rule book).
“Yeah, I mean, obviously he (Musetti) did that and nothing happened,” Tiafoe said of the incident.
“I think that’s comical, but it is what it is. Nothing happened, so there’s nothing really to talk about. Obviously it’s not consistent, so it is what it is.”
Meanwhile, former world No.1 Boris Becker believes Museeti’s warning was correct and there was no need to disqualify him. The German is also the former coach of Novak Djokovic.
“You can’t disqualify Musetti over something like that. The warning was justified, but you can’t compare it to Djokovic,” Becker told TNT Sports.
“The internet needs to calm down. Everyone’s trying to be holier than the Pope. But let’s keep things in perspective. It was a warning, not a disqualification.”
Musetti will play defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in the French Open semi-finals.
