Sorribes Tormo defends herself against criticism following Kato default

Sara Sorribes Tormo has defended herself against intense criticism following the controversial default of Miyu Kato from their French Open third-round doubles match on Sunday. Kato, meanwhile, has lodged an appeal against the default.

During the second set of the match in which the Spanish-Czech pair Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova were playing against Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi of Japan and Indonesia, Kato accidentally struck a ball girl with a ball, who burst into tears. Kato did not strike the ball in anger.

The umpire, Alexandre Juge, initially gave Kato and Sutjiadi a warning but Sorribes Tormo and Bouzkova protested. They pointed out that the ball girl was crying, suggested she was bleeding and one of the players stated: “This is default.” After some time, and the arrival of the supervisor, a tearful Kato was defaulted. The victors have since received significant criticism for their role in the decision.

“First of all, we were saying that the ball kid was crying because we were scared, because we were [saying]: ‘Oh, something happened,’” said Sorribes Tormo. “Then we were saying that the ball was direct because [the umpire] didn’t see the ball. All the rest [of] the decision was taken by the supervisor, and I think it’s not our thing or we haven’t done anything bad. That’s the only thing I’m going to say about this.”

After releasing a statement on Twitter, Kato returned to the court a day later, winning her mixed doubles quarter-final with her partner, Tim Puetz. From the beginning of the press conference, Kato was tearful, leading to the moderator briefly ushering her out of the room. When she returned, she told reporters in Japanese that she was appealing against the decision to the grand slam board.

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