By Tim Binnall
A tennis match at the French Open came to a brief stop today when an enormous boom shook the city of Paris, leaving players and officials concerned about what may have occurred outside the stadium. The unsettling incident reportedly took place as Dominik Koepfer was preparing to serve to his opponent Stan Wawrinka. Suddenly, a monstrous sound pierced the near-silent setting, causing Koepfer to visibly recoil and then look around in confusion.
After a short pause, the match eventually resumed while security officers scrambled to find out what had just happened. "It was kind of weird, we both stopped. We both looked at each other and didn't know what it is," Koepfer recalled, "it was a weird feeling, for one or two points I thought about it." The unease felt by the players was shared by residents of the iconic city which has been struck by terror attacks in recent years.
It did not take long for the origin of the proverbial mystery boom to be determined as officials in France quickly assured the public that the sound did not have a sinister source. It was, they said, a sonic boom which had been created by a fighter jet dispatched to investigate a pair of airliners that had lost contact with air traffic control. Fortunately, the situation turned out be benign and the aircraft resumed communication moments later.