'Cotton Eye Joe' interrupts professional tennis match mid-point

Of all the things to slightly delay a tennis match, we never thought the song Cotton Eye Joe would make the cut. Yet here we sit, talking about a 30-year-old song that briefly brought a match at the Canadian Open to a halt.

During a second set tiebreaker between Jessica Pegula and world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a rally had to be stopped because Cotton Eye Joe started playing. It was an incredibly random moment during the tournament.

Thankfully, someone captured and shared the moment on social media. Otherwise, we might not actually believe it happened:

no way 'Cotton Eye Joe' comes on mid-point pic.twitter.com/iCYf3hwnPG

— Ryan (@Some1NamedRyan) August 12, 2023

Cotton Eye Joe isn’t a song you hear too often around a tennis court. So, to find out it brought a critical point to a halt? That’s pretty funny. Pegula agrees.

“I just thought it was funny,” Pegula said, according to Reuters. “I’ve never had that happen, let alone with ‘Cotton-Eye Joe.’ I was like: ‘Is this really happening right now?’ Of all the songs. It was just like: ‘What is going on?’

“Yeah, it was a bummer because I hit a really good lob and she barely got it, and I had a really good play on the ball, and she was kind of out of position from the lob that I hit.”

The brief pause in play didn’t derail Pegula’s upset bid. She knocked off Swiatek in three sets in the semifinal round of the Canadian Open: 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-4.

It’s unfortunate that Cotton Eye Joe got most of the headlines because Pegula had a fantastic run in Montreal. The American tennis star carried her momentum from the victory over Swiatek into the finals against

Pegula needed less than 50 minutes to defeat Liudmila Samsonova to claim the Canadian Open title. She won in two sets, 6-1, 6-0. She became the first American woman to win the tournament since Serena Williams in 2013.

Pegula turned professional in 2009. She owns three career titles and boasts a 378-227 record all-time. She currently ranks as the No. 3 player in the world. It marks the highest ranking of her professional career.