French Open: 'I just want to apologise' - Shocking moment Irina-Camelia Begu throws racquet, makes kid cry, gets warning

Updated 26/05/2022 at 18:17 GMT

A long delay was caused on Court 13 at Roland-Garros on Thursday after Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu threw her racquet down and it bounced up into the crowd. Loud crying was heard as a result of the incident and Begu received a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. While it halted proceedings, Begu later posed for photos with the child in what made for a nice ending.

Watch shocking moment Begu throws racquet, makes kid cry and gets warning

There was a very regrettable incident on Thursday at the French Open as Irina-Camelia Begu threw her racquet in frustration and it caused a child in the crowd to cry.

Begu had slipped a break down in the third set to her opponent, 30th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, in their second-round encounter at Roland-Garros when she let her frustration get the better of her.

The Romanian threw her racquet down and watched in horror as it bounced up into the nearby crowd on Court 13 and caused a kid to cry loudly.

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Begu offered her apologies for what she described as an embarrassing moment.

"It's an embarrassing moment for me, so I don't want to talk too much about it," Begu said. "I just want to apologise.

"My whole career I didn't do something like this, and I feel really bad and sorry.

"So I'm just going to say again, sorry for the incident and, yeah, it was just an embarrassing moment for me.

"It was, you know, you hit the clay with the racquet, but you never expect to fly that much.

"It was, as I said, embarrassing moment for me and I just want to end it and not talk about it and apologise again."

There were gasps from the fans around the incident and the umpire immediately jumped down from the chair to call a supervisor and check the kid was okay.

Begu, who clearly felt sorry for what she accidentally did, stood nearby to express her concern as the child was comforted by those around them.

There was an extended delay in proceedings as the players stood by to check on the child and the umpire called a halt to the match temporarily.

It was a highly unfortunate incident and Begu received a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct as a result of throwing the racquet.

Despite the lengthy delay, Begu managed to go on and turn the third set around to complete a 6-7 6-3 6-4 victory over Alexandrova to progress through to the third round.

At the end of the match, there was a nice moment for the Romanian and the child as the pair posed for photos by the side of the court after she had clinched the win.