diff --git a/src/sapphire/test_worker.py b/src/sapphire/test_worker.py
index 7f439930..d332e9c4 100644
--- a/src/sapphire/test_worker.py
+++ b/src/sapphire/test_worker.py
@@ -198,13 +198,18 @@ def test_response_01(req, method, scheme, path):
 @mark.parametrize(
     "req",
     [
+        b"",
         b"a",
         # Invalid IPv6 URL
         b"GET http://[test/ HTTP/1.1",
+        # Missing Path
         b"GET  HTTP/1.1",
+        # Invalid Path
         b"GET a a a a a HTTP/1.1",
         # Invalid characters under NFKC normalization
         b"GET http://%E2%84%80/ HTTP/1.1",
+        # Missing method
+        b" / HTTP/1.1",
     ],
 )
 def test_response_02(req):
diff --git a/src/sapphire/worker.py b/src/sapphire/worker.py
index a261d4d7..95b9d2dc 100644
--- a/src/sapphire/worker.py
+++ b/src/sapphire/worker.py
@@ -50,10 +50,9 @@ def parse(cls, raw_data: bytes) -> Request | None:
 
         # TODO: parse headers if needed
 
+        raw_url = req_match.group("url")
         try:
-            url_str = req_match.group("url").decode("ascii", errors="replace")
-            # unquote() accepts str | bytes as of Python 3.9
-            url = urlparse(unquote(url_str))
+            url = urlparse(unquote(raw_url))
         except ValueError as exc:
             msg = str(exc)
             if (
@@ -61,7 +60,7 @@ def parse(cls, raw_data: bytes) -> Request | None:
                 and "Invalid IPv6 URL" not in msg
                 and "does not appear to be an IPv4 or IPv6 address" not in msg
             ):
-                LOG.error("Failed to parse URL: %r", url_str)
+                LOG.error("Failed to parse URL: %r", raw_url)
                 raise
             LOG.debug("failed to parse url from request")
             return None