Associated Press September 5, 2023, 3:18 a.m. ET2 Minutes
NEW YORK – A fan was ejected from a US Open tennis match early Tuesday morning after German player Alexander Zverev complained that the man used language from Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Zverev, the No. 12 seed, was tied at 2-2 in the fourth set of his match against No. 6 seed Jannik Sinner when he suddenly walked up to presiding referee James Keothavong and pointed at the fan sitting in an area behind the referee .
“He just said the most famous Hitler sentence that exists in this world,” Zverev told Keothavong. “This is not acceptable.”
Keothavong turned to the back and asked the fan to identify himself. He then asked fans to be respectful to both players. During exchange, shortly after Zverev held his serve, the fan was identified by others sitting near him and removed by security.
“A derogatory remark was directed at Alexander Zverev,” said Chris Widmaier, spokesman for the US Tennis Association. “The fan was identified and escorted from the stadium.”
Zverev said after the game that he had let fans make derogatory comments before, without involving Hitler.
“He started singing the Hitler anthem at the time,” Zverev explained. “It was ‘Germany over everything’ and it was a bit too much.
“I think he’s been involved in the game for a long time, though. It does not bother me. I love it when the fans are loud. I love it when fans are emotional. But I think that as a German I’m not really proud of it.” History, it’s not really a great thing, and I think that he’s sitting in one of the front rows, I think a lot of people have heard it. So if I just don’t react, I think it’s bad on my part.”
Zverev later dropped that set as he began to struggle with the damp conditions after Sinner suffered severe cramps in the third set. But Zverev recovered and won the fifth set, ending the match, which lasted 4 hours and 41 minutes, around 1:40 a.m. He will next face defending US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.
Zverev said it wasn’t difficult to get over the fan’s comment.
“To be honest, it’s his loss not to have seen the last two sets of this game,” Zverev said.