Ballkid’s mid-point brain fade at Australian Open

A ballkid was a little too eager to do his job at the Australian Open, committing a brain fade for the second time at the grand slam.

The ballkid went to collect the ball when the point was still going.

The ballkids at this year have been so enthusiastic they’ve now mistakenly ended a point early on two occasions.

In the second set of Saturday’s doubles match between Aussie pairing Jason Kubler and Rinky Hijikata and Germans Yannck Hanfmann and Dominik Koepfer, a ballkid ran onto the court midway through a rally.

The ballkid thought the point had ended when Hijikata played a deft volley towards the umpire’s chair, only for Koepfer to chase it down and get it back over the net.

Thinking the ball had bounced twice and the point was over, the ballkid ran across the court to fetch the ball, before realising the mistake and retreating.

“The ballkid will feel extremely terrible for that, but we all make mistakes,” Casey Dellacqua said on Nine.

“Stuff like that happens to the best of us.”

The umpire called a let and replayed the point. Kubler and Hijikata managed to hold serve in that game but Hanfmann and Koepfer won the match 6-4 4-6 6-3.

It means the Aussie duo won’t defend their fairytale doubles title from last year’s Australian Open.

The ballkid went to collect the ball when the point was still going.

They realised they went too early.

The accidental ballkid blunder came just a couple of days after Russia’s Karen Khachanov was left unhappy over a similar mistake.

Khachanov was serving at a set and a break up but was break point down early in the second set against American Aleksandar Kovacevic.

The 15th seed delivered a superb serve out wide that Kovacevic did well to get a racket on.

The ball looped up in the air towards the net but was clearly about to bounce out by dropping between in the doubles tramlines — taking the game back to deuce.

However, before the ball hit the ground to confirm the end of the point, the ball kid caught it in mid-air.

Immediately, the chair umpire called for a let so the point would be replayed, as per the rules, despite the ball clearly not going to come back into play.

And Khachanov exploded: “No! It’s out. Clear.

“Where is the rules? Where is the rules?”

Kovacevic spoke to the chair umpire and said he would concede the point in a brilliant moment of sportsmanship, knowing he deserved to lose the point.

The chair umpire added: “Are you giving him the point? I’m not allowed to do it unless he concedes.”

The ballkid caught the ball before it bounced out.

Aussie doubles teams eliminated

All the Australian pairings have been knocked out of the men’s and women’s doubles draws, so there will be no hat-trick of home grand slam titles after Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis triumphed in 2022.

Storm Hunter, who is playing with Czech Katerina Siniakova, is still alive in the women’s doubles as the third seeds.

Hunter and former doubles No. 1 Siniakova made a rusty start to their new partnership after the Aussie left-hander parted ways with Belgian player Elise Mertens following the ATP World Tour Finals in November

She reached the semi-finals of that competition and was also runner-up at Wimbledon with Mertens.

After a nailbiting third-round singles defeat on Friday night, Hunter is also a title chance in the mixed doubles with Ebden as the top seeds, while wildcard entrants Olivia Gadecki and Marc Polmans advanced to the second round after a thrilling 12-10 match tie-break victory over fourth seeds Hao-Ching Chan and Santiago Gonzalez.

Hunter and Siniakova will face the Russian pairing of fourth-round singles bolter Anna Kalinskaya and Ekaterina Alexandrova on Monday.