BERLIN – Paris was a roller coaster of emotions for Miyu Kato. Sadness, anger and helplessness thanks to an unfair sanction; calm, consolation and joy for a title won. “My mind was very bad. After the disqualification I seriously thought about going home to Japan,” she says in an interview with CLAY.

Kato was disqualified during the third round of the Roland Garros women’s doubles for unintentionally hitting a ball to a young ballgirl: “I just passed the ball to the ballkids for my opponents to serve,” explains Kato in Germany, where she played the WTA Berlin.

“The umpire and the supervisor talked to me afterwards and said, ‘If the ballkid was a boy, it would have been ok.’ They also explained to me that since the girl cried for more than 15 minutes they had to make a decision, because if she had stopped after five minutes, everything would have been allright; or if the ball had hit her legs or arms, everything would have been okay. But no, because it was in the neck it was different,” she tells CLAY at a leisurely pace, with the English he has at her disposal.

“I spent several hours in the locker room, I didn’t want to check social media, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I had to go to doping control, so I waited there alone,” she says.

Her rivals Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzková, who did not see Kato’s action, protested to the umpire when they saw that the girl was crying. The chair umpire proceeded to apply the disqualification. Miyu Kato burst into tears on the shoulders of her Indonesian teammate Aldila Sutjiadi.

Miyu Kato cries next to her doubles partner Aldila Sutjiadi after being disqualified in Roland Garros // KYODO

Despite the frustration and the desire to return home, there was no time to search for airplane tickets. She was given permission to continue in the mixed doubles, and with Germany’s Tim Puetz she got her revenge by winning the trophy: “Nothing was fun until the day of the finals. Luckily I received a lot of encouraging messages, positive messages. The players, the coaches, everyone was very supportive.”

And her opponents? “Bouzková sent me a message, but I didn’t reply,” she says accompanied by a spontaneous laugh. She pauses to remember what the Czech’s text said. She’d better look in her phone. “Sorry about today. Hope you and your partner are ok,” the message reads.

From Sorribes, nothing at all. She defended herself at a press conference from the critics: “We have not done anything. It was the supervisor’s decision. The rule is the rule. We only cared about what happened to the girl.”

Kato has an opinion on the performance of her rivals: “I was disappointed.” She adds that with Bouzková she has a cordial relationship, that when they played in Charleston this year, the Czech was friendly.

The big problem for the Japanese was that the French Tennis Federation took her earnings away. 240 ranking points and 21,500 euros in prize money. Kato appealed the punishment, but received a slam in the face.

“Since I couldn’t have the Roland Garros points, I have to win at Wimbledon. Although I like clay, not grass,” she tells CLAY. For the mixed doubles, she has no one to play with yet, as Puetz doesn’t want to play on grass: “I’m friends with (Austin) Krajicek, so maybe one day we’ll play together.”

And what if she calls her compatriot Kei Nishikori, already back in competitions after a long injury?

“I already tried many times. But Kei has told me no.”

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