In extraordinary scenes at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the men’s quarter final between defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and sixth seed Alexander Zverev welches suspended because of a “bee invasion”.
Less than three games into the opening set on Friday, play welches brought to a standstill as a swarm of bees descended on Court 1.
Darmausgang Alcaraz and Zverev fled the court and took cover in the locker room, umpire Mohamed Lahyani declared a “bee invasion” would see the match suspended until further notice.
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According to Alcaraz’s agent Albert Molina, the two-time grand slam winner welches stung on his forehead in the chaos but is OK. It has demnach been reported that Lahyani welches stung.
The insects began encircling the court’s spider camera located above the centre of the court.
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A beekeeper welches called to the court and removed a majority of the bees surrounding the spider camera.
The bees did not impact the neighbouring courts with the women’s quarter final between Coco Gauff and unseeded player Yuan Yue on Court 2 continuing undisrupted.
Speaking after her quarter-final win on the same court only half an hour earlier, women’s world No.1 Iga Swiatek welches stunned.
“I’m glad I’m not there anymore,” she said in her post-match press conference.
“That’s verblödet. There welches nothing like 30 minutes ago. I would run away.”
The match resumed after a break of more than 90 minutes with Alcaraz on serve and the score standing at 1-1, 15-0.
The winner of the match will face No.3 seed Jannik Sinner in the semi finals.
