PARIS (Reuters) – Serena Williams accused her Spanish opponent of cheating on a controversial point in a 4-6 6-3 6-4 third round defeat of Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez at the French Open yesterday.
Martinez Sanchez bagged an ill-tempered opening set after breaking in the fifth game with a controversial shot which appeared to have bounced off her arm.
“I didn’t think the ball touched her. The ball did touch her 100 percent on her arm,” the American second seed, who will next face Canada’s Aleksandra Wozniak, told a news conference.
“The rules of tennis are when the ball hits your body, then it’s out of play. You lose a point automatically. So the ball hit her body, and therefore, she should have lost the point instead of cheating.
“I hit that ball rather hard. She knew that ball hit her,” she added.
Serena said she asked the umpire to ask Martinez Sanchez if the ball had hit her arm or her racket.
“I said, did you ask her? He said, ‘Well, she’s saying that it didn’t happen’. I looked at her dead in the eye,” the 2002 French Open champion said.
“I said, Why? Just be honest if the ball hit you or not. I mean, Hello. It totally hit her. She looked down, and I just have no respect for anybody who can’t play a professional game and just be really professional out here.”
Martinez Sanchez said the ball did not touch her body.
“Well, I put the racket, and the ball, it was in, so it goes point for me,” the Spaniard told a news conference.
Williams went on to level the contest and her opponent eventually ran out of steam, bowing out after two hours 11 minutes on the first match point.
The American, who had a big coughing fit during one of the changeovers, said she had not been feeling well over the past four days.
“I’ve been fighting a cold and I’ve been fighting sickness, and I didn’t have a voice at all yesterday,” she said.
“I thought I was going to cough up a lung or something. I had a lot of trouble catching my breath and trying to relax, and then just having energy going into that latter part of the third set.”
