Zeynep Sonmez has won the hearts of tennis fans after rushing to help a fainting ball girl during her first-round clash at this year’s Australian Open.
The scary incident happened as Sonmez’s Russian opponent, Ekaterina Alexandrova, was serving for the second set on a scorching-hot Sunday in Melbourne.
Positioned beside the umpire’s chair at Melbourne Park, the ball girl in question was seen stumbling backwards before catching herself and finding her feet.
But just moments later, she collapsed again and fell flat on her back with some force, with viewers showing support and expressing their concern across social media.
While the umpire appeared somewhat oblivious to the scenes playing out directly below him, Sonmez was quick to intervene – holding up her hand to alert Alexandrova and bring the action to a halt.
Sonmez made sure to get an arm around the ball girl to prevent another fall and, together with a pair of Australian Open officials, helped her from the court and into a nearby seat.
Play eventually resumed after a six-minute delay Down Under, with temperatures reaching highs of 28°C at the first major tournament of 2026.
Tennis Australia subsequently confirmed that the girl received medical attention on site before being sent home.
‘She was really struggling. She said she was fine but it was really obvious she was not fine,’ Sonmez told BBC Sport.
‘So I went to grab her and said ‘sit down and drink something, you’re not fine’.
‘As we were walking she fainted so luckily I grabbed her. She was really shaking.’
The Turkish qualifier, who would go on to secure a shock 7-5 4-6 6-4 victory, added: ‘If I see her tomorrow or later in the tournament I’d love to speak to her.’
In an interview with Turkiye Today in 2024, Sonmez revealed how she would have liked to help make the world a better place had she not become professional tennis player.
‘In today’s world, there are lots of bad things going on – wars and things like that,’ the 23-year-old, ranked 112 in the world, said.
‘So I would probably be there helping people.’
In 2019, the Australian Open updated its extreme heat policy after conducting an investigation into the impact of heat stress on tennis players.
This led to the development of the heat stress scale (HSS), used to decide when the conditions are overly challenging and when the health of players could come under threat.
The HSS, which has a scale of one to five, registered a reading of 2.8 when the ball girl collapsed. The advice given at this reading is to increase hydration.
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