Missed flights are a part of life. Missing a flight is certainly unfortunate, but it is something that happens all the time as a result of busy schedules and confusing lives. Every now and then, something is altered in sports as a result. Nathan Horton was skimped after the Bruins won the Stanley Cup because an important piece of his celebration missed its flight. Allen Iverson made the fans in Istanbul wait for his arrival because he missed his plane and T.O. was too busy with a project to catch his flight to Cincinnati last summer. But a plane taking an athlete to the wrong airport? That’s pretty rare.
According to the LA Times Blog, that actually happened to women’s tennis player Bojana Jovanovski over the weekend. Jovanovski was ousted from the quarterfinals of the Citi Open in Washington on Saturday, and she planned to head to Carlsbad for the Mercury Insurance Open on Sunday morning. Her first match was not until Monday afternoon, so the 19-year-old would have arrived in plenty of time to prepare for Roberta Vinci. That is if the pilot flew to the correct airport.
Apparently there are two Carlsbad airports — the correct one in California and another in New Mexico. When Jovanovski got off her plane and a man was surprised that she had come to New Mexico to play tennis, she had a hunch she was in the wrong place. After she called her ride and was told they had been at the airport looking for her, the woman on the phone figured out what had happened.
Jovanovski wasn’t able to get to California until 30 minutes before her match, which she went on to lose. Best excuse for a loss of all-time? It has to be in the top-5.
