French Open: Miyu Kato reconciles with ball girls

What a beautiful picture: Tennis ace Miyu Kato caught up with the ball girl she accidentally shot down last Sunday. The Japanese was excluded from the doubles competition at the French Open because of this incident. The 28-year-old won the mixed doubles competition.

Alongside the ball girl picture, Kato wrote: “Glad to hear you are doing well and continuing as a ball girl. It makes me very happy to hear that.” She hopes the girl enjoys the gift she gave her. “I look forward to seeing you again. I wish you only the best », the Japanese ended her post. It is not known what gift she gave the girl.

Opponents demanded disqualification

Last Sunday, the 28-year-old and her partner Aldila Sutjiadi played doubles against Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova (Spain/Czech Republic). At 6-7, 3-1, Kato missed a ball and accidentally hit a ball girl in the neck. This began to cry, Kato apologized on the pitch. She was warned by the chair umpire.

But the opponents put themselves in vehemently and requested the supervisor. Lo and behold, this disqualified Kato and her partner – much to the delight of the opponents, as pictures of the laughing players showed. They received a shit storm online for it.

Grand-Slam-Titel im Mixed

Kato, on the other hand, apologized again via social media for her faux pas, which was completely unintentional, as she wrote. She received a lot of encouragement, also from players and experts. Nevertheless, the Japanese had trouble when she was asked about the ball girl story with mixed partner Pütz, so she had to interrupt the press conference.

With the German, however, she found her way back to success – and how. On Thursday, the duo won the French Open title in mixed doubles. In the final, the duo defeated Michael Venus of New Zealand and Bianca Andreescu of Canada 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 on Thursday. Pütz/Kato received 119,000 francs in prize money for their victory, a small consolation for the difficult past few days.

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