MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The increasingly bizarre world of professional tennis has witnessed some strange things in recent years, but the sudden and violent death of a bird on the Australian Open’s center court Thursday was weird by anyone’s standards.
The bird’s life came to a grisly end when he instinctively chased a moth across the Rod Laver Arena only to be struck down seconds before catching his prey when he flew straight into the path of a powerfully struck forehand by French doubles player Michael Llodra.
The force of the shot left him with no chance. Killed instantly, he dropped like a stone to the Rebound Ace court.
The unexpected fatality caught everyone by surprise. Women and children shrieked in horror, while men, who drive lorries to work and can drink gallons of beer, winced.
Julien Boutter, who was partnering Arnaud Clement in what was already a tense semifinal against Llodra and Fabrice Santoro, was the first to respond.
He threw down his racket and dashed over to where the bird lay, hoping for a miracle, but he was too late, so he fell to his knees, crossed himself and delivered the last rites.
The other players joined in the impromptu funeral until a court official ended the ceremony and ushered the bereaved back to their respective sides of the net.
PLAYED ON Llodra bravely played on, ignoring the agony and tormet of his grief, as he and Santoro sealed a hard-fought 6-3, 3-6, 12-10 win to book a place in the final.
``I didn’t do it deliberately,‘’ Llodra explained later.
``But at least I saved the moth.‘’
The International Tennis Federation keeps all manner of statistics and oddities in their various handbooks and data systems but even they don’t keep records on bird fatalities.
But unexpected bird droppings have been commonplace in many other sports over the years and some have become part of sporting folklore.
The gruesome footage of a bird ``exploding’’ in a spring-training game between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks last year was shown on dinner-time news broadcasts around the world.
Arizona’s Randy Johnson struck and killed a low-flying dove that had the misfortune of crossing in front of home plate at the same time as the 152 km/h fastball.
American golfer Tom Kite was trailing by one stroke on the 71st hole of a tournament in Boston last year when he killed a bird with his tee shot.
The ball fell into a water hazard; Kite took a double bogey and lost by four strokes.
But when it comes to bird killings, nothing beats the genteel sport of cricket.
There have been many famous accounts of pigeons, doves, swallows and swifts meeting their maker after straying too close to the action.
Perhaps the most famous was a sparrow killed by a quick delivery by Jehangir Khan, of Cambridge University, to T.N. Pearce, playing for the Marylebone Cricket Club in July 1936.
The bird died instantly but his memory lives on because they stuffed him and put him on display in the museum at Lord’s.