French Open: Astonishing moment Ons Jabeur has ‘brain freeze’ and kicks ball away as serve lands in

Serving in an extended deuce while 3-1 down in the crucial third set, Jabeur found the line with an exquisite delivery out wide to Haddad Maia’s backhand side, but then inexplicably stopped playing and lost the point on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

The reason? She thought that the serve had gone out, so kicked the return away with her foot as it came back from her Brazilian opponent. It was a perplexing mistake from the 28-year-old at a critical moment in the match when she was trying to hold serve and put the pressure back on the 14th seed.

Jabeur was then left to look utterly bewildered as she stared back down the court after she realised her gaffe. Eventually, she managed to smile about it before continuing the service game, but it was an incredible mistake and one that the umpire confirmed after walking down to inspect the mark of the serve.

On commentary for Eurosport at the time, Simon Reed and former French Open semi-finalist Jo Durie expressed their disbelief at what had unfolded.

“Oh, the serve was in, I think?” said Durie.

“Yeah, there was no call. Oh, my goodness! Talk about a brain freeze right now!”

Reed confirmed: “It’s in! What is going on? It was just in, by a sliver, but really, Ons…”

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