Britain’s Cameron Norrie avoided disqualification for throwing his racket into the crowd as he lost in straight sets at the Auckland Classic.

Norrie struggled to hit the net with a forehand return, giving match point to his opponent Facundo Díaz Acosta, who sealed the victory 6-2 6-3.

The spectator was hit by the racket, but not hard enough and was not injured. Norrie only received a warning from the referee.

Novak Djokovic was controversially disqualified from the 2020 US Open for accidentally hitting a linesman with a ball, but Stefanos Tsitsipas is set to compete with Nick at Wimbledon 2022 · Kyrgios avoided being penalized for hitting the ball into the stands during an intense game.

“I didn’t want to do it, but it’s still not ideal and I’ve never done anything like this,” Norris said.

“She laughed and I just said ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that’. She said ‘Yeah, I’m totally fine’.”

“It’s not a big deal. But as we’ve seen with some other players, you can easily get defaulted if they’re in the wrong position or they’re not paying attention or whatever.

“I didn’t mean to do it and I absolutely should not have done it. I apologized quickly and I want to apologize in general. I’m not happy with my actions.”

Norrie battled injuries throughout 2024, missing the summer’s North American tour, including the U.S. Open.

However, he got off to a good start in 2025 by reaching the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open last week and will now head to Melbourne for the Australian Open, which starts on Sunday.

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