NEW YORK — One of the early matches Monday at the US Open was delayed for several minutes for an unscheduled game of hide and seek.
The vibration dampener popped off two-time Grand Slam champion Barbora Krejcikova’s racket on the second point of her match against Victoria Mboko of Canada. Chair umpire Aurelie Tourte, Mboko and eventually the crowd and security staff aided Krejcikova in her search.
“It’s happened to me obviously many, many times in my career,” Krejcikova said. “We lost it, and we couldn’t find it. That’s pretty much what was happening there. The dampener was playing a game with us, so we were all looking for it and I’m happy that we found it.”
Krejcikova, who won Wimbledon last year and the French Open in 2021, said it was “nice from all of them” to help find the dampener, which players use to reduce the effect of vibrations from the ball hitting the racket.
Once it was located, the 29-year-old from Czechia advanced in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2. Mboko, who turns 19 on Tuesday, attempted to not to let the roughly six-minute stoppage throw her off.
“It disrupted the play a little bit,” Mboko said. “It was fine, I guess. I kind of tried to center myself and try to focus again because it took quite a bit of time to find her dampener. I think after it all I just wanted to kind of regroup. It was a little pause in the game, but I tried to make sure I was still active and bouncing around and ready for the next point.”
Mboko played with her right wrist heavily taped to stabilize what she called a previous injury. She was coming off winning her home-country tournament in Montreal, during which she beat Grand Slam champions Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina and Sofia Kenin along the way.
“I feel just really happy to have the opportunity to play against such great players, and I think that’s really good for my growth as a tennis player and to have a bit more experience going forward in the next couple of matches I know what it’s like to play such top players,” Mboko said. “They won Grand Slams, and that’s the goal. You want to win Grand Slams, too.”
