Miyu Kato exposes French Open’s SEXIST approach in deciding on her disqualification after she mistakenly hit a ball kid

Though Kato thought of heading back to Japan, she instead continued playing the mixed doubles matches with Germany's Tim Puetz to emerge victorious.

Miyu Kato exposes French Open’s SEXIST approach in deciding on her disqualification after she mistakenly hit a ball kid

Miyu Kato with ball kid, Aldila Sutjiadi, and Miyu Kato (Images via Twitter)

In the recently concluded 2023 French Open, Japan’s Miyu Kato experienced all kinds of emotions. She dealt with anger, frustration, and sadness at the third-round match with her Indonesian doubles partner Aldila Sutjiadi.

The pair were disqualified from the tournament just because Kato, unintentionally, hit a ball kid, while passing the ball to the opponents. Initially, there was no drama and no bigger punishment was given to them. However, their rivals Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova, protested that Kato and Sutjiadi should be defaulted because the ball kid was crying.

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This saw the supervisor, the umpire, and the other officials come up with a decision to disqualify Kato and Sutjiadi from the clay court Grand Slam event, leaving Kato in tears.

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“The umpire and the supervisor talked to me afterwards and said, ‘if the ball kid was a boy, it would have been ok.’ They also explained to me that since the girl cried for more than 15 minutes they had to make a decision, because if she had stopped after five minutes, everything would have been alright; or if the ball had hit her legs or arms, everything would have been okay. But no, because it was in the neck it was different,” she told Clay Tenis.

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Miyu Kato said she didn’t reply to Marie Bouzkova’s message

Miyu Kato reveals if the ball kid was a "BOY", there wouldn't have been disqualification controversy at French Open
Miyu Kato with ball kid (Image via Twitter)

Miyu Kato later revealed that after her disqualification from the doubles matches, her opponent Bouzkova had messaged her, saying sorry for whatever happened. But Kato did not reply. Though Bouzkova apologized to her, Sara Sorribes Tormo said nothing.

But the biggest disappointment for Kato was losing the points. The French Tennis Federation had to snatch her earnings (21, 500 euros) and 240 ranking points due to the disqualification.

Though Kato thought of heading back to Japan, she instead continued playing the mixed doubles matches with Germany’s Tim Puetz to emerge victorious and experienced a new kind of thrill, and all were happy emotions.

The pair of Kato and Puetz defeated Bianca Andreescu and Michael Venus in the final with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 10-6. And on the prospect of pairing with Puetz for the Wimbledon Championships mixed doubles matches, Kato said the German doesn’t want to play on grass so she now has to search for a new partner.

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