Bouchard recalls locker room fall in lawsuit testimony

NEW YORK: Former world number five Eugenie Bouchard testified on Wednesday in US District Court in Brooklyn that she screamed in pain in a locker room fall at the US Open in 2015, US media reported.

“I screamed, ‘Oh my God, it burns!’” Bouchard told jurors, according to the New York Post.The 23-year-old Canadian was testifying in her lawsuit against the United States Tennis Association, which operates the Grand Slam tournament at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York.

Bouchard’s suit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims the USTA was at fault for applying a “slippery, foreign and dangerous” cleaning substance.She hit her head in the fall, suffering a concussion and pulling out of the tournament.

The USTA has argued that Bouchard, who had played a late mixed doubles match, should have known that the room would be being cleaned at 11 pm, when her fall occurred.A lawyer for the governing body had told jurors on Tuesday that the cleaning spray was only applied after management thought all the players had departed for the day.

The jury of four women and three men selected on Tuesday has heard testimony from David Brewer, tournament director of the US Open, and from women who worked as locker room staff.