A pro-Palestinian protester disrupted a match between Alexander Zverev and Cameron Norrie at the Australian Open before being dragged away by fans – much to the delight of those in attendance. The masked woman threw large pieces of paper marked “Free Palestine” onto the court, causing a brief delay in the match. That’s when two fans stepped in to stop the lunatic.
Play at an Australian Open match was briefly stopped on January 22 when a protester threw “Free Palestine” leaflets onto the court. pic.twitter.com/z12RhZZqiy
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 22, 2024
Woman Interrupts Australian Open, Fans Take Action
Of course this woman, who decided a tennis match was the best way to get her point across about war in the Middle East, was wearing a mask. Of course, she was.
We reckon she’s most likely quintuple vaccinated and likely has 12 cats as well, with another 15 buried in her walls.
“While you’re watching tennis bombs are dropping on Gaza,” one of her little righteous leaflets read according to Outkick. “Australia is a close ally of Israel. Australia is complicit in war crimes and genocide. Free Palestine.”
Sadly though, security at the Australian Open showed no interest in stopping the unruly fan.
Melbourne, Australia – pro-Palestinian protestor attempts to disrupt the @AustralianOpen tennis before spectators step in & forcefully remove the selfish individual & hand them over to authorities #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/xlOL5ho1Fr
— Menachem Vorchheimer (@MenachemV) January 22, 2024
Security Criticized
It’s a good thing this Sheila was only urging to “free Palestine” and not shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ prior to throwing something else. Because security didn’t help with the situation at the Australian Open at all.
As the video shows, and The Telegraph reports, “Two fans grabbed the protester and frogmarched her out of the stadium.”
Where once the crowd was booing the mask-wearing protestor, they now began cheering the fans who took matters into their own hands in what the outlet described as “arguably the largest cheer of the day.”
Well done to those two fans who leapt into action.
Alexander Zverev, the 26-year-old German player in the match, laid into Australian Open security for the incident.
“It shouldn’t be another fan dragging the other person out,” Zverev said. “It should be the security guys that should be there quite quickly. It shouldn’t take them three, four minutes.”
Indeed, it took just a split second for an obsessed fan to stab Monica Seles, the former world number 1 women’s player at the Citizen Cup in 1993.
Can you imagine if this was at the height of the pandemic in Australia, and a person simply showed up at the stadium not wearing a mask? They would have been pummeled mercilessly, jailed, and likely deported.
Zverev eventually defeated Norrie in a thrilling five-set match, 7-5, 3-6-3, 4-6, 7-6(10-3) in a tiebreak. He moves on to face the number 2-seeded Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.
