The Australian Open began with a dramatic incident in a match involving Russian tennis player Ekaterina Alexandrova. The game, in conditions of hellish heat, had to be urgently stopped due to an incident that even precautions could not prevent.

“You don’t feel good”

Alexandrova came to Melbourne with the hope of a good result, and there were all the prerequisites for this. The Russian tennis player is currently ranked 11th in the WTA rankings. In the first round match, she was considered a big favorite, because her opponent Zeynep Sönmez had never risen above 69th place in the world rankings in her career. Before the Australian Open, she was not even in the top 100, but made it into the main draw through qualification.

The start of the match was left to Ekaterina, she was one game away from winning the first game. But the Russian woman managed to give the set to her opponent with a score of 5:2, losing five games in a row. The next segment didn’t start easily either. Our athlete allowed her opponent to make a break in the first game.

But by the ninth game, Alexandrova managed to straighten out the situation. She served for the set, with two rallies left to win. But when the score was 40:40, the game had to be stopped urgently. The girl serving the balls near the referee’s tower suddenly fell. She became ill in the Melbourne heat, despite wearing protective headgear. The temperature that day reached 28 degrees. The victim stood up, but had difficulty staying on her feet.

– She felt very bad. She said she was fine, but it was very obvious that she wasn’t. So I went up to her and said: “Sit down and drink something, you don’t feel well,” the BBC quoted Sönmez as saying.

On the way to the chair, the girl felt worse in Zeynep’s arms, which led to loss of consciousness. Alexandrova did not immediately notice the incident, since it happened on the side of the Turkish woman, but when she saw it, she also decided to help. She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a cold towel. Doctors quickly arrived to the victim, brought the girl to her senses and took her to a room under the stands. The stands responded to the action of the tennis players and doctors with applause.

Ekaterina Alexandrova / Photo: © Lintao Zhang / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

“Being a good person is more important”

The dramatic incident brought down the mood of our tennis player. She gave away two rallies in a row, allowing her opponent to make a break and reduce the gap to a minimum. But Alexandrova immediately took her opponent’s serve, which led to her victory in the second set with a score of 6:4.

It seemed that Sönmez’s resistance would be broken, especially since Ekaterina took the lead in the decisive period with a score of 3:0. But out of the next seven games, the Russian was able to take only one, losing 4:6, which led to her unexpected departure in the first round of the tournament.

After the victory, the Turkish woman attracted a lot of attention from the press thanks to the timely assistance provided to the girl, but Zeynep is very modest. At the same time, the Turkish tennis player chose the very right words.

“When we were walking, she lost consciousness, and, fortunately, I caught her. She was shaking very badly. “I always say that being a good person is more important than being a good tennis player,” the BBC quotes Sönmez as saying.

Russian Oksana Selekhmetyeva reached the second round of the main draw at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career, beating German Ella Seidel in the first round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

The meeting ended with the victory of the Russian tennis player with a score of 6:3, 3:6, 6:0. The match lasted 1 hour 47 minutes.

Selekhmetyeva, ranked 101st in the WTA rankings, will play in the second round with the winner of the match Zarina Diyas (Kazakhstan, WC) – Paula Badosa (Spain, 25).

Grand Slam Tournament. Australian Open. Melbourne (Australia). Hard. Total prize fund: about $75 million

Women. First round

Oksana Selekhmetyeva (Russia) — Ella Seidel (Germany) — 6:3, 3:6, 6:0.

Russian tennis player Andrei Rublev told how the presence of former world number one Marat Safin on the coaching staff influences him, and also admitted that he knows nothing about his next opponent in the Australian Open bracket.

In the first round match of the Australian Open, Rublev beat Italian representative Matteo Arnaldi with a score of 6:4, 6:2, 6:3. In the second round, the Russian will meet with the Portuguese Jaime Faria.

— What does cooperation with Marat Safin give you? Are we talking about practicing exercises in training or about some technical and tactical issues?

— Honestly, I don’t know. It calms and relaxes.

– So you’re saying that off-court actions are just as important as on-court events?

– Everything is important. I don’t know what else to say.

– Let’s talk about your next opponent Jaime Faria. Do you know anything about him?

— I don’t know who I’m playing with because I didn’t check the draw. You told me the name, but I still don’t know who it is,” Rublev said after the match.

Safin and Rublev have been collaborating since the spring of 2025. Now the Russian is 15th in the ATP rankings, Faria is 151st in the world.