{"id":19529,"date":"2025-07-24T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T21:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19529\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T21:55:08","slug":"tennis-ball-boy-squashes-invasive-bug-rescued-by-player-in-viral-match-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/19529\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis Ball Boy Squashes Invasive Bug Rescued by Player in Viral Match Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_c1wimssl5\">Greece&#8217;s Maria Sakkari was just trying to do a nice thing for a bug during her stunning upset against American Emma Navarro in this year&#8217;s Citi Open in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_i1nkhz9eb\">As it so happened, her compassionate gesture hilariously backfired.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_66o5vst8s\">At one point during Wednesday&#8217;s match, Sakkari picked up a bug on her side of the court and walked over toward the barriers to set it free, moving it away from immediate danger. The match&#8217;s commentators applauded her kindhearted move: &#8220;Good work there from Sakkari, taking care of the local wildlife. Very delicately done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_y9sqy3m1b\">But, mere seconds later, a ball boy came over and squashed the bug with his shoe. The bug appeared to be a spotted lanternfly, which is an invasive insect species on the East Coast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_chy0lipac\">Sakkari could only watch and laugh as her well-intentioned attempt to save a bug&#8217;s life ended in an arguably quicker death for the helpless insect.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Maria Sakkari saves bug\u2026<\/p>\n<p>bug gets SQUASHED \ud83d\ude2d\ud83e\udea6 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EEMv1DgpVs\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/EEMv1DgpVs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisChannel\/status\/1948162221567307825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 23, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_qmcurwfcm\">Some things in life are just inevitable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tagStyle_1mfvp8o-o_O-style_mxvz7o-o_O-style_12bse5w-o_O-style_6s3kpz\" data-mm-id=\"_lw9goxyuu\">Sakkari went on to stun Navarro in straight sets (7-5, 7-6)\u2014her first top-20 win on a hard court since last March\u2014and booked a spot in the quarterfinal on Friday. Hopefully, she won&#8217;t run into any awkward bug-related incidents in that match.<\/p>\n<p>More on Sports Illustrated<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greece&#8217;s Maria Sakkari was just trying to do a nice thing for a bug during her stunning upset&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-19529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}