Miami Open match halted as umpire makes announcement and players made to wait | Tennis | Sport

The all-teenage clash between Victoria Mboko and Mirra Andreeva came to a stop in just the third game of the match. Mboko was serving for a 2-1 lead when both players suddenly returned to their benches at the side of the court. “What’s going on? It’s not the end of the game,” Sky Sports commentator Jonathan Overend told viewers.

Chair umpire Marija Cicak quickly informed spectators that the net on the Butch-Buchholz Court had broken and that they needed to wait for it to be repaired. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have to wait to fix the net, thank you,” she said.

“Ah, there’s a problem with the net,” Overend added, as Sky Sports cut away to other matches around the grounds. It took a few minutes for someone to come to the third-biggest court at the Miami Open to fix the net, and Overend wasn’t happy.

“Let’s go back to see Marija Cicak, the umpire, at the net here, dealing with frankly a pretty disappointing situation, because one of the matches of the day has been interrupted in just the third game by a problem with the net, and it’s taken forever to get this guy to the court. He is the net engineer, and apparently, he is the only guy who can fix this,” he said.

Cicak stood by the side of the set with a ball kid and another official while the net was fixed. Mboko and Andreeva had to wait on the sidelines until they were given the green light to resume.

“I wonder who actually first noticed it, whether it was one of the players or whether it was Marija Cicak. ‘As long as it holds’?” Overend asked, overhearing the umpire’s conversation with the net engineer. “Interesting that they had a back-up net just incase they couldn’t sort that one out. I would suggest that our net friend doesn’t go too far.”

After eight minutes, Mboko finally resumed her service game, leading 40-30. And she got it done with no trouble, not disturbed by the delay. But the Canadian had to save a break point a few minutes later to move 3-2 ahead on serve. Andreeva then saved break points to level the score at 3-3.

They might be teenagers, but this is already the third meeting between Mboko and Andreeva, with all three coming this year. Andreeva came out on top when they met in the Adelaide final back in January. A few weeks later, the 19-year-old Canadian got revenge when they met in the round-of-16 in Doha.

Mboko earned her first WTA Tour-level win in Miami last year, entering the tournament as a wildcard ranked down at No. 162 in the world. Her breakthrough came at her home tournament, the Canadian Open, when she lifted the trophy as a wildcard. Ranked at No. 85, she stunned Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, and Naomi Osaka on her way to the title. Since then, Mboko has lifted another trophy in Hong Kong, reached two other finals, and cracked the world’s top 10.

Andreeva, meanwhile, enjoyed her breakout at the 2023 Madrid Open, aged just 15. She stormed into the fourth round as a wildcard, and then made it to the second week of Wimbledon a few months later. Now, she’s a four-time title winner, with two of those titles coming at WTA 1000 level, and has peaked at No. 5 in the world.

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