Britain’s Cameron Norrie apologised and avoided disqualification when a racket he threw in the air struck a spectator at the ATP Tour tournament in Auckland on Tuesday.

Norrie was facing match point against Facundo Díaz Acosta of Argentina when he lightly tossed his racket, which struck a woman in a court-side box who was unhurt. Norrie received a warning from the chair umpire and went on to lose 6-2, 6-3 in the first round of the tournament. He reached the final in Auckland in 2023.

“I wasn’t meaning to do that but it’s still not ideal to be doing that and I’ve never done something like that,” Norrie said. “[The spectator] was laughing and I just said: ‘So sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ And she said: ‘Yeah, I’m completely OK.’

“That was not a big deal. But as we saw with some other players, you can easily be defaulted if it catches them in the wrong spot or they’re not looking or something. I was not meaning to do that and it is completely not me to do something like that. I apologised very quickly and I want to apologise in general. I’m not happy with how I behaved.”

Novak Djokovic was disqualified from the US Open in 2020 after accidentally hitting a line judge with a ball, while at the 2023 French Open Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were defaulted from the women’s doubles after a ball hit by Kato struck a ball girl.

Also in 2023, Australian tennis player Marc Polmans was defaulted from the final round of qualifying at the Shanghai Masters after hitting a ball into the face of the chair umpire.