


Bianca Andreescu screams back.
The Canadian tennis player faced Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk in the first round of the Mubadala Citi DC Open on Monday, and she was not afraid to call out a heckling spectator in the stands.
Andreescu, 23, missed a serve in the third set and the man in the crowd yelled “out” after reportedly cheering for her prior mistakes.
Andreescu had enough, threw her arms in the air, turned toward the man and screamed “shut up” in his direction.
The umpire radioed security to remove the man from the stadium, as Andreescu reportedly refused to continue until he left the match.
It was 2-2 in the final set at the time of the incident, and Andreescu proceeded to lose the next two games.
Kostyuk, 21, clawed back from a set down and saved three match points to secure her victory 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(5).
The No. 34 in the world is playing with a career-high ranking and will face France’s Caroline Garcia, the No. 2 seed, in the second round.
“I lost my chances at 4-all, there were some painful mistakes,” Kostyuk said, according to WTA Tennis.
“Honestly, I didn’t believe I could win this one but I was just trying to play every point and stay in the match and fight not give up.”
While Andreescu — the 2019 US Open champ — out-performed Kostyuk statistically, hitting 31 winners to Kostyuk’s 25 and 38 unforced errors to 37, she could not seal the deal.
“What a wonderful sport :-),” Andreescu wrote in a tweet Monday after the match.
Monday was Andreescu’s first match of the hard court season.
The No. 44 in the world took some time off after losing to Ons Jabeur in the third round at Wimbledon.
Andreescu moves on to the National Bank Open in Montreal with her first-round match set for next Tuesday.