World No. 33 Yulia Putintseva asked the umpire to eject a spectator from her first-round match at Wimbledon over safety concerns, calling the attendee “dangerous” and “crazy.”
Putintseva went on to lose 6-0, 6-0 to the USA’s Amanda Anisimova in just 43 minutes and was visibly emotional while sitting down ahead of the final game.
Trailing 0-3 in the first set on court 15, Putintseva reported the fan to the umpire at the change of ends.
“Can you take him out? I’m not going to continue playing until he leaves,” she was heard telling the umpire on the BBC broadcast. “These people are dangerous, they’re crazy.”
After being asked by the umpire which fan it was, Putintseva gestured to the stand behind where she was serving and said it was a spectator wearing green.
The umpire then said he would phone security before getting down from his chair to speak to two members of security staff who were courtside.
“Maybe he has a knife and he will attack after, I don’t know,” Putintseva, who didn’t speak to the media after the match, said.
In a statement to TNT Sports, the organizers said: “Following a complaint about the behaviour of a spectator at the match on court 15, the chair umpire informed security and the matter was dealt with.”
CNN Sports has reached out to the All England Lawn Tennis Club for comment.
The incident comes after a man was ejected from the Dubai Tennis Championships after displaying “fixated behavior” towards British player Emma Raducanu in February.
The man followed Raducanu to at least four competitions earlier this year, and on noticing him in Dubai, the British star previously said she “couldn’t see the ball through tears” due to her distress.
British media reported that the man had tried to obtain tickets to Wimbledon, but was flagged and blocked by the All England Club’s security system. Raducanu praised Wimbledon for doing an “amazing job” at preventing the man accused of stalking her from buying tickets to the tournament.
“Wimbledon and everyone did an amazing job. I got a notification, the police contacted me and told me everything was OK,” Raducanu told BBC Sport.
“I know that I am not the first athlete to go through this, and I probably won’t be the last – not just as an athlete, but females in general.”
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