'Cotton Eye Joe' interrupted a tennis match: 'Is this really happening now?'
Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from at the Canadian Open, Cotton Eye Joe?
It was an unusual interruption in one of the biggest matches of the Canadian Open, as No. 1 seeded Iga Swiatek and No. 4 seeded Jessica Pegula played their semifinal match in Montreal Saturday. During a critical point of the match, with Pegula up 4-3 in a second-set tiebreaker and three points away from victory, Swiatek was about to strike the ball when the 1995 song by the Rednex just started to play out of nowhere.
The crowd was stunned, and Pegula was visibly confused as to why the song began to play inside IGA Stadium.
Swiatek went on to win the tiebreaker to force a third set, but Pegula was able to recover to win the match in a 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-4 victory. She was also able to have a laugh in the odd incident after the match.
"I just thought it was funny. I've never had that happen, let alone 'Cotton-Eye Joe' I was like, 'Is this really happening now?' Like, of all the songs, it was just like what is going on?" Pegula said.
Pegula will hope there are no music interruption in the Canadian Open final, where she'll face the winner of Elena Rybakina and Liudmila Samsonova on Sunday.