Tennis match between Emilio Gomez and Roberto Quiroz at the Orlando Open interrupted by a 3-foot snake

A tennis match between Emilio Gomez and Roberto Quiroz at the 2022 Orlando Open on Saturday received a surprise visitor in the form of a three-foot long snake.

It is speculated that the marshy conditions in the city encouraged the reptile to seek shelter in the arena, unbeknownst to the organziers, until it eventually emerged midway through the encounter.

The quarterfinal clash was interrupted for about five minutes as volunteers and officials scampered to get the snake off the court, following which action finally resumed on Court 3.

Gomez ended up taking the contest 6-2, 3-1 after his opponent retired with an injury in the second set. Up next, the Ecuadorian will take on China's Yibing Wu for a place in the final. Emilio Gomez already has three titles on the ATP Challenger Tour so far and will be looking to win his fourth this weekend, assuming he can make it past Wu first.

What are other instances of animals interrupting a tennis match?

What are some other instances of animals interrupting tennis matches?

This is not the first time an animal has interrupted a tennis match amidst all the action. The 2016 ATP Challenger in Sarasota saw a snake interrupt a first-round clash between Chile's Gonzalo Lama and Great Britain's James Ward. The snake eventually slithered away to safety on its own, but not before one of the volunteers attempted to dispose it off with his bare hands.

That same year, the ATP Franken Challenger in Furth, Germany, also witnessed another snake make its way onto the court, interrupting an encounter between Germany's Julian Reister and Brazil’s Caio Zampieri. Eventually, one of the organizers and the groundskeeper managed to take the creature off the court and release it safely into the wild.

The 2017 Miami Masters saw an iguana enter the court during a tennis match between Czechia's Jiri Vesely and Germany's Tommy Haas, with Haas being intrigued enough to pick up his phone and take a photo of it. After causing its fair share of commotion, the reptile was eventually shooed away from the court by organizers.

Most famously, a dove interrupted a clash between Rafael Nadal and Kyle Edmund at the 2017 Monte-Carlo Masters when they took on each other in the second round. The bird almost disrupted the 22-time Grand Slam champion's momentum during the deciding third set, but he kept his cool enough to vanquish the Brit enroute to his history-making 10th title at the tournament.