”Bathroom penalty doesn’t stop Ivanovic”Ana Ivanovic defeated Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-3, 6-2 to reach the Generali Ladies quarterfinals. Ivanovic had some problems during the match when after winning the first game of the match, with her serve, the Serb asked for a toilet break. It looks like the former world number 1 took too long and the umpire gave her four penalty points, one point for every 20 seconds she went over the time limit, upon her return.
Ivanovic blamed the incident on “a miscommunication” and said she thought she had been allowed to leave the court.
The rules state that players cannot visit the bathroom before an opponent’s serve, it must be done before their own.
Ivanovic later realised as much. “I wasn’t familiar with this rule. I was just feeling sick, so I really had to run off the court.” she said.
“I asked the referee and I thought he granted me permission to go so I was really surprised to be punished,” she added.
“It did not disturb my concentration and it didn’t really matter because I won the match,” she said.
“I was hitting the ball quite well,” said Ana. “The whole incident with the time violation got me fired up and I used that anger pretty well.
She admitted that she had been caught a little off-guard by her start-time, after the previous match had ended quickly. “I’m a little embarrassed to admit that,” she said.
“I felt a bit sick so I had to go to the toilet,” the seventh-ranked Ivanovic told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I asked the referee and I thought he granted me permission to go so I was really surprised to be punished.”
The Serb, who won the event in 2008, said the incident did not put her off.
“It did not disturb my concentration and it didn’t really matter because I won the match,” she said.
Ivanovic next meets Julia Goerges of Germany, who beat fifth-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-1 to reach her fifth quarterfinal of the season.
Goerges won her only WTA Tour title in nearby Bad Gastein in July.
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