Karolina Muchova admitted that she did not even notice the protesters at first during her US Open semi-final defeat.

Her loss to Coco Gauff in New York was delayed for 49 minutes as climate protesters stormed the court as feet were glued to the surface, but the Czech star was so locked in that she did not notice at first.

“First of all, I didn’t even notice,” admitted Muchova. “I just thought it was, like, fans screaming, cheering.

“And yeah, I thought it might be fast, but then the supervisor told me it can be five [minutes] or hour, you know. So I’m, like, Okay, so can we leave the court?

“We were just standing there, and then they told us, yeah, we can leave the court. So what to wait there for? They didn’t know the situation. Yeah, then I saw the glued guy there!

“It took some time. Yeah, I just wanted to get off the court and then keep myself [a] little warmed up and, you know, not just to stand there.”