A quarter-final at the W75 event in Vacaria, Brazil, transformed into genuine controversy this week after back-to-back displays of unsportsmanlike behavior on court.

Russian teenager Daria Egorova threw her racket out of the court in frustration. The racket went on to hit someone in the crowd, and it turned out to be a tournament official. However, the chair umpire decided not to disqualify Egorova, and the game proceeded to its conclusion. 

The moment occurred in the first set at 4-3, when Egorova was serving to hold on deuce. After sending a backhand long, the 19-year-old threw her racket off the court in frustration, and it landed directly on a group of individuals who were standing just outside the perimeter. According to her opponent, that individual was in fact a referee working the tournament. Instead of issuing a default under the “unsportsmanlike conduct causing injury or contact with a person” rule, the chair umpire allowed the play to continue. 

Egorova went on to close out the match, beating second seed Martina Capurro Taborda of Argentina by a double 6-4 scoreline. After the match, visibly upset both at its result and at the absence of any sanction for the racket incident, Capurro approached the umpire and expressed her frustration by kicking the umpire’s chair, and continued yelling at the umpire till she stormed off the court entirely. 

Soon after, the Argentine shared the details on social media, calling the incident one of the most shocking she had ever experienced during her career. “She loses the point and throws her racket outside the court. It hits a person directly, who was a tournament referee on top of that,” she wrote.

“In any tournament, it’s a direct disqualification,” she said. Her shock at the incident grew as she observed the bystanders’ astonishment, which was just as great as hers. 

Capurro also addressed the explanation she says was given to her at the time by tournament supervisor Felipe Munno, and made clear she did not accept it. “The supervisor’s justification was that there was no intent and that it didn’t cause major harm,” she wrote, rejecting that reasoning outright. 

She confirmed her intention to escalate the matter formally, stating she planned to file a complaint with the ITF, and vowed to pursue the issue as far as necessary. “I hope the ITF does something about it. I’ll send as many letters as I have to send,” she said.

A result that leaves Egorova’s run intact despite the fallout

The result stands as one of the bigger upsets of the tournament regardless of the controversy surrounding it. Egorova, a relatively young player with a career-high ranking of 487, downed a much more seasoned player. Capurro holds a career-high ranking of No. 149 and has won 11 ITF titles and has a career record of 244-153. As the tournament’s second seed and a more experienced player, her defeat was particularly disappointing. 

The victory pushes the Russian into the semi-finals of the $60,000 tournament, where she will take on Peruvian Lucciana Perez, who has not lost a single set all tournament. It is yet to be seen if the racket incident will have any other consequences for Egorova beyond the match itself, especially if the ITF decides to review the supervisor’s decision after Capurro’s complaint. 

It has also brought up the larger issue that has come up in tennis from time to time – how consistently are the rules for racket abuse and on-court contact followed at various levels of the game. Usually, at the ITF level, there is a lot of leeway in providing default rulings for less serious contact with ball kids and officials as opposed to Grand Slams. For the 28-year-old, that inconsistency is now the central grievance driving her formal complaint.