Amer Delic has appealed to Melbourne’s Bosnian community to calm down and not turn his Australian Open clash with Serbian defending champion Novak Djokovic “into World War III.”
Delic, born in Sarajevo but now a US citizen, came from two sets down to beat Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 1-6, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 9-7 yesterday in front of a large crowd of cheering and chanting Bosnians.
The victory set up a third round clash with Djokovic.
PHOTO: AP
It was the second match in a row that Delic had won in five sets and the second where the behavior of his Bosnian fans has been criticized, Mathieu even going so far as to say they were shaming the sport.
Security was called at one stage when a group of Serbian fans turned up and the two groups of supporters began taunting each other.
“They were chanting back and forth across the court and I couldn’t control that,” Delic said.
PHOTO: AP
“I felt bad for Paul and I apologized to him right after it happened but it’s tough — obviously I like those fans, they’re getting me through those matches,” he said.
“Today was bad when the other side came across — I’m just hoping with Novak that it doesn’t turn into World War III,” Delic said.
“I’m going to try and tell my fans that we don’t need to be embarrassing ourselves in front of the world and I hope Novak says something to the Serbian fans also,” he said. “You know, leave the politics aside. It’s not my fault and it’s not Novak’s fault.”
Violence erupted on the opening day of the 2007 tournament when Serbian and Croatian fans, wearing the national colors of the bitter Balkan rivals, attacked each other.
Delic said he knew some of the Bosnian fans followed his Web site and he would make an appeal through that avenue, but he would also speak to some of the leaders of the Bosnian community in Melbourne.
“I will tell them to keep it a tennis match and nothing else,” he said.
Mathieu said the Delic supporters were giving the Australian Open and tennis a bad name, not because of the rivalry with other ethnic groups but because of their heavy drinking.
“I found the attitude of the spectators shameful,” he said.
“If they want to have a party, why don’t they go to a bar? In the fifth set I had to go to the toilet and I found bottles of vodka,” Mathieu said. “It’s a shame to have such spectators at the court and a shame for tennis — to be on vodka at one o’clock in the afternoon?”
Following Delic’s first round defeat of fellow countryman Taylor Dent, Dent’s father, former Australian Davis Cup player Phil Dent, went on Melbourne radio and attacked the supporters, saying they were disrespectful to his son.
“The facts are yesterday [Monday] that the kids who were there — 18, 19-year-old kids and supporting Delic which is fine — but they were allowed to heckle, to taunt, do lots of things,” Dent said.
“They were interrupting the serve ... they were chanting on the line calls, in the middle of points. Basically they were out of control,” he said.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with