Miyu Kato complained about the omission of the French Open women’s doubles

Japan’s Miyu Kato (R) and her German partner Tim Puetz react after winning their mixed doubles quarterfinal match at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris on June 5, 2023. (Kyodo)

Japan’s Miyu Kato said Monday that she has filed a complaint with the Grand Slam governing body about the failure of the women’s doubles at the French Open a day earlier because she accidentally hit a ball girl with the ball.

Kato bounced back from the disappointment by reaching the mixed doubles semifinals on Monday with his German partner Tim Puetz. She beat the pair of Brazilian Luisa Stefani and Rafael Matos, who won the Australian Open, 7-6(5), 6-2 on the same court. 14 at Roland Garros, where fans called him by name.

– We were able to play until the end of the match, the opponents said kind words to me and it was also a bit emotional when people came to cheer me up, the 28-year-old said after shedding a tear after the victory.

“I couldn’t focus on mixed doubles before the warm-up this morning, and I couldn’t eat much yesterday either. But my partner Tim really helped me, let me play comfortably and I’m really grateful to him.”

In Sunday’s women’s doubles third-round match, Kato and her Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi came unstuck when Kato’s ball accidentally hit the opposite end of the court and hit the ball girl, leaving her in tears.

Kato, who apologized to the girl in court and also on Sunday in a Twitter post, said at a press conference Monday that he had asked to review footage from the scene but had been denied by a court monitor and later told her. he had just been “unlucky”.

Kato added that she “still doesn’t accept the situation” after the umpire initially only gave her a warning before the protests of the opposite pair, Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, led to a reversed decision.

“They said the girl is bleeding, I thought she wasn’t, but the referee went down because of their strong appeals and it was overturned,” Kato said.

Kato said he was “really encouraged” after receiving a lot of support from players on Twitter after the incident, and is looking forward to his next outing.

“I’ve been receiving positive energy worldwide and it’s lifted my spirits tremendously,” Kato said in his latest tweet. “Now I’m in the semifinals of the mixed doubles, where I’m using all the positive energy to succeed.”

Kato said the match had not been uploaded as of press time to the app, which allows players to watch video footage of every match in the tournament, and suggested the organizers were trying to avoid looking into the incident.

“The players here are supposed to be able to watch all the matches on the app, but that match hasn’t been uploaded so I can’t check that either,” he said. “I can only think they are trying to hide the fact. I want them to look at the footage, it wasn’t there yet this morning.”

Japanese tennis player Miyu Kato (C, seated) and her Indonesian partner Aldila Sutjiadi (far L, seated) are cleared by a referee during their women’s doubles third round match at the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, June 4, 2023. (Kyodo)

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