A fired-up Naomi Broady let her racquet do the talking as she stormed back to beat Jelena Ostapenko in an ill-tempered Auckland Classic clash marred by an on-court row after the Briton called for the Latvian to be disqualified.
Tensions boiled over in the second set of the low-key second round clash when, after a winner by Broady, the 18-year-old Ostapenko’s racquet came out of her hand, bounced off the blue hard court and against the back wall towards the ball boy.
“She threw the racquet and hit the ball boy, no way was that accidental,” the 25-year-old Broady complained to the umpire.
Play was delayed as the umpire and ball boy had a conversation.
The umpire opted for a code violation over a disqualification after the Latvian wildcard argued the racquet slipped from her hand but a clearly upset Broady called for another official to adjudicate.
“I asked for the tournament referee to come down onto the court to give his opinion,” Broady was quoted as saying.
“But as he isn’t the chair umpire, he goes by what the chair umpire says and his opinion was that it had slipped from her hand, as Jelena had said, so it was just a code violation and move on to the next point.”
Broady, who knocked out former world number one Ana Ivanovic in the first round on Tuesday, settled quicker to take the tiebreak and force a deciding set but she looked down and out as she trailed 5-1 in the third.
But the British qualifier saved a second match point as she stormed back to prevail 4-6 7-6 7-5, helped by 21 aces, and book a spot in the quarter-finals where she will face American fifth seed Sloane Stephens.
Both players shook hands at the end of the contest but bad blood remained with Broady clearly angry about the incident and repeating her accusation that Ostapenko intentionally threw her racquet in the second set.
The umpire attempted to quell the trouble as the players continued their verbal volleys.
“Jelena commented that my behaviour was terrible,” Broady said.
“Which I thought was a bit out of order, considering the events that had gone on in the match. I don’t think I did anything disrespectful to her, or anyone else on the court.”
Meanwhile, Caroline Wozniacki looked a clear title favourite in the tournament as she demolished Christina McHale to reach the quarter-finals.
Wozniacki had lost the first four games of her opening-round match before rallying, but was on form from the start against McHale and breezed to a 6-0 6-2 victory.
The Dane, who next plays Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru, is the highest seed remaining following losses for defending champion Venus Williams and Ivanovic in round one.
Williams’s conqueror Daria Kasatkina could not build on her big win, losing 7-5 2-6 7-5 to Japan’s Nao Hibino.
Two more seeds fell, with qualifier Tamira Paszek beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2 6-3 while Germany’s Julia Goerges was a 6-4 7-6 winner over Barbora Strycova.