A very Australian interruption occurred at the Brisbane International Tennis tournament on Saturday – snake stopped play.
News.com.au reports that former world number three Austrian player Dominic Thiem was competing in a qualifying match against Australian James McCabe when a snake was spotted, having slithered onto courtside.
While snakes are common in Australia, spectators soon spotted that this was a poisonous eastern brown snake almost hidden in the electrical wiring at the side of the court.
Play was halted for about 40 minutes while the call went out for a snake catcher, who arrived and promptly parcelled the snake into a bag.
McCabe had won the first set 6-2 when the snake arrived, but the delay helped Thiem turn things around and he went on to win the match in three sets.
Rafael Nadal and Britain’s Andy Murray are both competing at the event, ahead of the first of this year’s Grand Slams, the Australian Open, which begins in a fortnight in Melbourne.