{"id":156263,"date":"2025-06-04T01:39:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T01:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/156263\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T01:39:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T01:39:04","slug":"lorenzo-musetti-avoids-disqualification-after-hitting-line-judge-with-ball-at-french-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/156263\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorenzo Musetti avoids disqualification after hitting line judge with ball at French Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lorenzo Musetti narrowly avoided disqualification from the French Open after kicking a ball that struck a line judge during his quarter-final victory over Frances Tiafoe on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The world No. 7 seed progressed to his first Roland Garros semi-final with a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 win.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred when Musetti was trailing 3-5 in the second set. After dropping a ball behind the baseline while receiving balls from a ball boy, the 23-year-old swung his left foot at it.<\/p>\n

The ball unintentionally hit the female line judge in the chest, and Musetti immediately moved towards her, holding his racket up in apology.<\/p>\n

\"Lorenzo<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Musetti kicked the ball on the half-volley straight at the line judge<\/p>\n

X @tntsports<\/p>\n

“Nothing happened, so there’s nothing really to talk about. Obviously it’s not consistent, so it is what it is.”<\/p>\n

The 15th seed had drawn the umpire’s attention to the incident when he went to change racquets.<\/p>\n

Despite his frustration with the officiating, Tiafoe didn’t attribute his defeat to the controversial moment, having levelled the match before Musetti secured a crucial break in the third set.<\/p>\n

The incident drew immediate comparisons to Novak Djokovic’s disqualification from the 2020 US Open.<\/p>\n

Djokovic was defaulted after hitting a ball from his pocket behind him with his racket, accidentally striking a female line judge in the throat.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>Sheffield Wednesday could face disqualification after failing to pay staff AGAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

Tim Henman was also famously disqualified from a Wimbledon men’s doubles match in 1995 when he accidentally hit a ball girl in the head.<\/p>\n

Speaking on TNT Sports, Henman explained the regulations: “By the letter of the law, if you hit or kick a ball away in frustration and it hits a ball boy or a line judge or the umpire, that can be a disqualification.”<\/p>\n

The former British number one acknowledged that “the umpire could have interpreted that as a disqualification.”<\/p>\n

Henman suggested the Italian would have felt “very unlucky and very aggrieved” if disqualified, but warned: “When you kick the ball away, you’ve either got to be a better footballer and hit it in the right direction or you are risking something like that.”<\/p>\n

Boris Becker defended the umpire’s decision: “You can’t disqualify Musetti over something like that. The warning was justified, but you can’t compare it to Djokovic.”<\/p>\n

LATEST SPORTS NEWS:
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\"Lorenzo<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Musetti celebrated getting to the semi-final of the French Open<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

However, some fans took to social media, calling the decision “a disgrace” and criticised “the inconsistency and double standards in decision-making.”<\/p>\n

Musetti described the incident as an “unlucky coincidence” in his post-match press conference: “I was a little bit, honestly, scared, because I really didn’t want to harm nobody, of course.<\/p>\n

“So, I immediately went to the line umpire, and I of course said, Sorry, I apologise to everyone.”<\/p>\n

The Italian believed the umpire made the correct decision.<\/p>\n

He explained: “It was right to have a warning, but I think the umpire saw that there was no intention about that, and that’s why probably just, you know, let me continue my game.”<\/p>\n

Despite the controversy, Musetti advanced to face either Carlos Alcaraz or Tommy Paul in Friday’s semi-final.<\/p>\n

He becomes the third Italian, after Matteo Berrettini and Jannik Sinner, to reach Grand Slam semi-finals on multiple surfaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lorenzo Musetti narrowly avoided disqualification from the French Open after kicking a ball that struck a line judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[512,93,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-156263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sgg","9":"tag-sport","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114622546850099543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}