This Tennis Player Was Punished For Fixing Her Shirt During A Match — People Are Outraged

Serena Williams isn’t the only tennis player whose had to deal with recent wardrobe critiques (the French Open decided to ban catsuits after the athlete wore one). On Tuesday, a French tennis player was punished for fixing her shirt during a match at the U.S. Open, and fans are, understandably, upset.

French tennis star Alizé Cornet was given a violation at the U.S. Open, held in Queens, New York, when she took her shirt off to readjust it while on the court. Due to high temperatures at about 96 degrees, players were given a 10-minute break to cool off and rehydrate. During that break, Cornet changed into a fresh shirt. When she returned to the court, she realized her shirt was on backwards, so she removed it and put it back on the right way. When she did, umpire Christian Rask slapped her with a code violation.

Now, according to Buzzfeed, it’s true that what she did was in violation of the rules — Women’s Tennis Association rules say that players can only remove their shirts when off-court. But the thing that really stinks here is that there is no comparable rule for male players. To make things even worse, male players frequently took their shirts off on Tuesday because of the heat… and none of them got a violation for it.

Cornet herself was surprised by the penalty, and she ended up losing the match to Swedish opponent Johanna Larsson. Throughout the day, a few players left matches early because of the heat, and more than 20 people attended required medical treatment. In other words: it was clearly uncomfortably hot, and Cornet was likely just trying to stay cool.

Fans were outraged by the decision, and took to Twitter to show just how unfair the rule is.

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The backlash was so strong that it prompted the U.S. Open to issue an official statement on the matter. They said, “We regret that a Code Violation was assessed to Ms. Cornet yesterday. We have clarified the policy to ensure this will not happen moving forward.”

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The Women’s Tennis Association also released a statement, saying the violation “was unfair and it was not based on a WTA rule, as the WTA has no rule against a change of attire on the court.” They added, “Alizé did nothing wrong.”

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We’re glad to see that the WTA and the U.S. Open said something, but still — the fact that this happened at all is a sign that things need to change, big time, in the tennis world.