The US OpenThe fourth and final Grand Slam of the season, is a hard court tournament, but grass was the topic of conversation for Greek tennis star Maria Sakkari after her early departure on Monday.
The No. 8 seed was beaten 6-4, 6-4 in the first round of the US Open by Spaniard Rebeka Masarova, marking Sakkari’s third consecutive first-round exit at a Grand Slam following a result similar to the French Open and Wimbledon earlier. This year. During a match changeover, Sakkari noticed a peculiar smell from the chair umpire.
“It was grass,” she said after the match. “The smell, oh my God.”
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Sakkari said she “smelled it yesterday at practice too” and attributed the smell to a nearby park. Sakkari’s match was played on Court 17, an open-air stadium where neighbors can meet in a park outside the confines of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.
“We can’t control it, it’s a backyard park and people can do whatever they want,” she said.
Despite the peculiar smell, Sakkari did not blame her performance on it: “I was not affected by that smell in any way. It was just a comment, it has nothing to do with the match. .It’s not relevant. Don’t think about it, all you care about is winning the match. I didn’t pay much attention to it.
Last year, Australian Nick Kyrgios also complained about the smell of marijuana. after a second-round victory at the 2022 US Open, saying he had asthma and the smell could affect his breathing.
“When I run side by side, I have trouble breathing,” he said at the time. “It’s probably not something I want to breathe between points.”
