The third-round match between women’s world no 1 Aryna Sabalenka and British No 1 Emma Raducanu witnessed some dramatic scenes when Raducanu was so hassled by a noisy fan that she beseeched the chair umpire to eject the noisemaker. There was only one hilarious problem with the request: the source of the noise was a crying toddler.
Media reports of the game noted that Raducanu was first distracted — and then angered — by the constant wailing of the child from the stands and consequently tried to tell the chair umpire to act and shut out the noise. The incident happened during the eighth game in the deciding set, when the British tennis ace was preparing to serve.
It was a request that the chair umpire was not too keen to heed.
“It’s been like 10 minutes,” Raducanu can be heard complaining to the umpire in a video that’s now gone viral.
“It’s a child, do you want me to send a child out of the stadium?” the chair umpire snapped back.
At this, plenty of fans can be heard agreeing as Raducanu points at them as if to say that the request is justified.