'It was an accident I didn’t want': Lorenzo Musetti explains incident with line judge

Lorenzo Musetti addressed the moment he hit a line judge with a ball during his win over Frances Tiafoe in the French Open quarterfinals. The Italian responded to an interview in Spanish, in which he tried to explain the incident that led to a warning and brought him close to disqualification.

According to the rulebook, players are prohibited from hitting anyone inside or outside the court with a ball, regardless of intention, which could result in an automatic disqualification. The most well-known example is Novak Djokovic’s disqualification at the 2020 US Open, after unintentionally hitting a line judge in the throat during his match against Pablo Carreño Busta.

Similar incidents include Denis Shapovalov during the 2017 Davis Cup against Great Britain, and Marc Polmans during the 2023 Shanghai Masters qualifiers. More recently, Miyu Kato was disqualified at Roland Garros 2023 for accidentally hitting a ball girl.

In other cases, players narrowly avoided disqualification. For example, Cameron Norrie received just a warning in Auckland 2023 after launching his racket into the air and accidentally hitting a woman in the crowd. Andrey Rublev also came close to being disqualified in Roland Garros 2022 after nearly hitting a groundskeeper with a ball.

This time, Musetti was the center of controversy. During one of his service games, a ball kid tossed him a ball, and Musetti lightly kicked it back – without much force – but it ended up hitting the nearest line judge. While the ball didn’t cause any apparent harm, the chair umpire gave Musetti a warning. It was a moment that could have meant disqualification.

After the match, Musetti gave an interview courtside to ESPN Latin America, where he tried to explain in Spanish what had happened: “It was an accident I didn’t want. But the ball... I don’t know what happened. It was an unfortunate moment. I wanted to apologize, and the warning was deserved. But from that moment, I started playing better, had much more patience. I think that was key.”

The world No. 7 eventually claimed victory 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 and reached his first-ever Grand Slam semifinal. He now awaits the winner of the match between Tommy Paul and Carlos Alcaraz.