BIZZARE: WTA Star Runs Out of Tennis Racquets During French Open 2020 Defeat

Apart from talent, hard work, and dedication, luck plays an important role in sports too. At times, it may even be the deciding factor between a win and a loss. For 20-year-old Ukrainian, Katarina Zavatska, lady luck did not grace her at all. She lost her opening match at the 2020 French open to 5th seed Kiki Bertens.

The Suzanne Lenglen court played host to the match. The game crawled into the deciding set after both the players claimed a set each. Tragedy struck Zavatska as she ran out of racquets due to broken strings.

Even though her coach had handed her his personal racquet, she lost the deciding set without claiming a game. Devastated and dejected, Zavatska left the court with a heavy heart.

“Slightly bizarre and unfortunate scenes on Lenglen. Katarina Zavatska, who was playing a really good match against Kiki Bertens, broke numerous strings and ran out of racquets. Her coach then seemed to give her one of his (Babolat not Yonex). She lost the decider 6-0,” the tweet read.

She appeared to suffer an emotional breakdown by the interruption of fate. Mentally devastated, she lost the will to fight and was far away from her usual self in the deciding set.

“Zavatska is in tears as all her racquets have their strings broken”, the tweet shows.

Kiki Bertens struggled in the first round match in the French Open 2020

Katarina Zavatska was clearly not the favorite to win the tie against Kiki Bertens. Not many truly expected her to make life difficult for Bertens, let alone defeat her. Proving everyone wrong, Katarina took the lead by claiming the first set 6 games to 2.

The loss of the first set forced Kiki to step up her game. She returned to her usual self in the second set to claim it 6-2. Lady luck was riding on Kiki’s side. The third set was a complete demolition from Kiki as she took the set without letting her opponent claim a game.