Aryna Sabalenka got extremely frustrated toward the end of her Wuhan match against Jessica Pegula and just barely avoided being disqualified after throwing her racket and nearly hitting a cameraman.
In the deciding set of their Wuhan battle, Sabalenka led 5-2 and appeared to be cruising toward booking a final ticket. But then, the defending champion failed to serve out for the match in the ninth game. It soon went from bad to worse for the Belarusian after she got broken again in the 11th game as Pegula opened a 6-5 lead and gave herself a chance to serve out for the match.
After losing the 11th game, Sabalenka threw her racket - it bounced off her chair and came back towards the court - and nearly hit a cameraman. Had the four-time Grand Slam champion hit the cameraman with her racket, she would have been automatically defaulted.
Sabalenka's act left a commentator baffled
The racket goes flying and who has she hit there with the racquet? That is dangerous territory for Aryna, this semi-final has exploded into life in the last 10 to 15 minutes. Aryna gets a warning for the racket abuse, but she is lucky it is not more. Shocking behavior," a Sky Sports commentator said on air.
After the incident, Sabalenka managed to get the break back and send the third set into a tie-break. Unfortunately for the world No. 1, she failed to deliver in the tie-break as Pegula dominated it to seal a 2-6 6-4 7-6 (2) win.
That was crazy, I cant believe I came back and won that. I was clearly very nervous when trying to serve it out.I lost my timing, lost my rhythm and tried to go for too much.But I bounced right back in the tiebreak," Pegula admitted afterward.
Sabalenka had been 20-0 in Wuhan before losing to Pegula. The Belarusian stayedat three Wuhan titles in her collection.
