A squirrel interrupted a women's doubles match on Saturday night at the US Open forcing the chair umpire to call for the point to be replayed.
The bizarre scene happened on Court 5 in a second-round doubles match featuring the team of Laura Siegemund and Vera Zvonareva playing against the Belgian duo of Greet Minnen and Yanina Wickmayer. And it happened at a crucial juncture in the match.
Laura Siegmund and Vera Zvonareva had lost the first set 7-6, but serving up a break in the second set, they were behind in the third game, when a squirrel intercepted midway through a rally which Zvonareva had immaculately finished off with a deft touch at the net only for the point to be docked off.
That was because a ground squirrel lost its bearings and was scampering on the court and around the baseline area of their opponents when it was imminently spotted by the chair umpire who brought the match to a halt momentarily. It struggled to find the exit on its first attempt but eventually, it made its way out through the far-end seating area.
The small pocket of fans in the stadium took out their phones to take pictures. It's not the first time that animals have interrupted tennis matches. There have been plenty of incidences in the past and even similar creatures bringing matches at the US Open to a standstill.
Cats and dogs have been spotted sauntering around the courts before. At lower-level Challenger tournaments, there have been multiple incidences of grass snakes invading match courts. Perhaps one of the most mystifying animal invasions in tennis was when a giant Iguana ran onto the court in a match at the 2017 Miami Masters.
Thankfully though, despite some of these incidents being extremely frightening, none of the players or ball kids were harmed. You can take a look at yesterday's incident in the video below.
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