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British tennis player Cameron Norrie was among the highlights at the Auckland Open 2025 on Tuesday, January 7. The Auckland-born star player nearly avoided disqualification when he tossed his racquet in air, which eventually struck a spectator at the ATP tournament during the Round of 32 clash.
Norrie, who was facing Facundo Diaz Acosta of Argentina in the Round of 32, lightly tossed his racquet in the air as the Argentine neared the match point. But unknowingly, the racquet hit a woman in a court-side box. However, the spectator escaped serious injury, the Brit tennis player received a warning from chair umpire for his actions.
Cameron Norrie accidentally hits spectator with thrown racquet; apologises
Playing in the RO32, Norrie was quick to apologise for his actions as he quickly went towards the court-side to pick up his racquet from the ground. Speaking after his 2-6, 3-6 defeat against the Argentine, Norrie said, “I wasn’t meaning to do that but it’s still not ideal to be doing that and I’ve never done something like that. The spectator was laughing and I just said ‘so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ And she said ‘yeah, I’m completely OK’.”
"That was not a big deal. But as we saw with some other players, you can easily be defaulted if it catches them in the wrong spot or they’re not looking or something. I was not meaning to do that and it is completely not 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,” he continued.
Watch video of Cameron Norrie's accidental instance during Auckland Open 2025:
It is to be noted that there have been several such instances in the past when players have been disqualified for similar actions. Novak Djokovic was controversially defaulted from 2020 US Open after accidentally hitting the line judge with a ball. In another instance, David Nalbandian was disqualified from 2012 Queen’s final after kicking an advertising board into a line judge.
