Britain’s Cameron Norrie avoided disqualification for throwing his racket into the crowd during his straight-sets defeat at the Auckland Classic.

Norrie let out his frustration after a poor forehand return which hit the net to give opponent Facundo Diaz Acosta match point, with the Argentinian sealing the win 6-2 6-3.

The spectator was hit by the racket, but not with force, and suffered no injuries, with Norrie only receiving a warning from the chair umpire.

Novak Djokovic was controversially disqualified from the 2020 US Open after accidentally hitting a line line judge with a ball, but Stefanos Tsitsipas avoided being defaulted for hitting a ball into the crowd at Wimbledon in 2022 in his fiery match with Nick Kyrgios.

“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,” said Norris.

“She 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.”

Norrie struggled with injury throughout 2024, missing the North American swing in the summer, including the US Open.

However, he made a solid start to 2025 by reaching the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open last week and will now head to Melbourne for the Australian Open, which begins on Sunday.

Mixed fortunes for Brits in Australian Open qualifying

Billy Harris and Francesca Jones won their respective first Australian Open qualifying matches on Tuesday.

Harris came back from a set down to defeat Japan’s Yuta Shimizu 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 6-4 in the men’s draw, as Jones saw off Czech Linda Fruhvirtova 7-5 6-4 on the women’s side. Both players need to win two more matches to qualify for the main tournament itself, which begins on Sunday.

Lily Miyazaki, Jan Choinski and Paul Jubb all lost their opening qualifying matches.

Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Jacob Fearnley have all earned direct entry into the main draw, along with Katie Boulter, Emma Raducanu, Sonay Kartal and Jodie Burrage.

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