the Express<\/a>. “The most important thing is the welfare of the ball kid, but in terms of the match, this is tough on Alexandrova, who is serving.”<\/p>\nREAD MORE: Emma Raducanu destroys Australian Open star to storm into next round after early wobble<\/span><\/span>READ MORE: Andre Agassi told \u2018you\u2019re such a d***’ as Roger Federer Australian Open match takes a turn<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nSonmez in particular was hailed for her reaction. One fan wrote on on X: \u201cClass act from Sonmez.\u201d Another added: \u201cBig respect to her.\u201d A third wrote: \u201cIt is very nice and rare to behave humanely without losing your humanity. Zeynep behaved as an athlete should.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing couldn’t have been worse for Alexandrova – she was at deuce on her serve when the stoppage occurred. Medical staff eventually arrived, and the ball kid was helped to their feet and escorted off court to applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n
The interruption appeared to disrupt Alexandrova’s flow, and she was broken when play got back underway. Turkish supporters inside the 1573 Arena erupted in celebration, chanting and cheering for Sonmez.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/g><\/clippath><\/defs><\/svg>Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nHowever, the qualifier was broken straight back, and Alexandrova clinched the set 6-4 to force a deciding third set. The Russian started strong in the decisive third set, breaking serve immediately.<\/p>\n
However, Sonmez held her nerve to clinch a stunning 7-5 4-6 6-4 victory in front of her supporters in the crowd. Alexandrova will now shift her focus to the women’s doubles, where she’ll partner with Venus Williams.<\/p>\n
Melbourne was bathed in warmth, with the mercury hitting 28 degrees Celsius, and it wasn’t just the ball kid who found the conditions challenging. Canadian qualifier Liam Draxl called for medical assistance multiple times during his first-round match against Damir Dzumhur in the men’s singles draw, having his vital signs monitored.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The match between Ekaterina Alexandrova and Zeynep Sonmez was paused on the first day of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}