By Michael Gleeson
Destanee Aiava thought it was like a rugby league crowd. Jack Draper said it was the worst abuse he’d experienced, even though he thrived on it. Novak Djokovic was sick of the shouting while players were preparing to serve, and on Friday was jeered and booed after withdrawing injured from his semi-final.
“They can’t be booing them, for God’s sake,” McEnroe said. “He has won this [tournament] 10 times. Unreal.”
Fellow Nine commentator John Millman was equally horrified at the way the 10-time Australian Open champion was treated by the crowd as he left Rod Laver Arena, perhaps for the last time.
“I just think it’s a bit of a shambles, some of it has crossed the line and that one takes the cake for me,” he said. “I don’t care how much you’ve spent on your ticket, have some respect.”
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, meanwhile, was surprised to turn up for one of her matches and discover it was being played in a bar … with a court attached.
And Danielle Collins? Well, no one was surprised at the boos that greeted the American’s next appearance after she kissed her hand and slapped her backside at the fans she had earlier told to “shut up” when they were yelling out between first and second serves.
Even Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley had a hunch that chair umpires at this year’s Australian Open were forced to intervene against unruly fans more often than in previous years, and asked his staff for the numbers.
Novak Djokovic points to a heckler after defeating Tomas Machac in the third round.Credit: AP
The numbers said otherwise. They show there were 15 calls to Tournament Control from umpires requesting crowd control or security as of Friday morning. Last year there were 24 for the whole tournament, and there were 33 in 2023. Whether umpires were more officious then, or more permissive now, is not measurable.
“Anecdotally, I felt that too [that there had been more umpire interventions]. So I asked them two days ago, can I get a sense of where we’re at with that? But we’re on par with where we were last year. So there’s been no change on that,” Tiley said.
“There’s always going to be that individual in the crowd, or there’s one or two individuals that make it feel like it’s bigger than it actually is. So it’s pleasing that has been on par to where it was last year and previously. And we have had more people come through the gates. That doesn’t necessarily change the number of people in the stadium, but that’s a good outcome.
Djokovic exits Rod Laver Arena.Credit: AP
“We monitor everything. We record the warnings, we record the point penalties, we record the crowd ejections, and they’re on par to where they have been historically,” Tiley added.
What is undeniable, though, is that the collision of sport with entertainment – call it “sportainment” – has turned some fans from the game and upset some players.
Djokovic was all for innovation to engage fans, even suggesting dancers between sets, but called out a drunken heckler after his third round match.
“On the court it’s frustrating, and it comes in a bad moment,” the 10-time Australian Open champion said, despite offering to have a drink with the culprit. “Maybe you had a few already.”
The party court.Credit: Penny Stephens
Tiley makes no apologies for dialling up the entertainment, and the determination to appeal to the broader sports consumer by offering more than a tennis match will not be wound back any time soon.
Last year the Australian Open became the first grand slam event to allow fans to return to their seats on the lower levels of the arena without waiting for the change of ends. The other slams followed. The fans liked the change and the players learned to live with it.
Tiley said he was not trying to create LIV tennis, but experiments like Court Six – otherwise now known as the party court – are set to be duplicated in some form with more courts next year.
“At the beginning, we didn’t know how Court Six was going to pan out. We knew our fans wanted a different experience, and we knew that it’s going to be challenging for the players, and it’s not traditional tennis,” Tiley said.
Jack Draper reacts to the wild crowd on John Cain Arena.Credit: AP
“So we built a court last year to trial it, and there were a couple of players that didn’t like it. The majority that played out there actually loved it because of the energy.
“There’s a few people in the crowd that ruin it for everyone, and we actually don’t want those people around. And we said that clearly if anyone comes on site with a purpose to disrupt the experience of others we want them out.
“We are not trying to make LIV tennis. But we would like to expand it, absolutely, because we want the fans to be able to sit down, have a drink, get a meal, and look over your right shoulder, left shoulder, and see some great tennis.”
Of course, rowdiness in the stands is a far cry from the ugly scenes outside the courts at previous opens. Scores of people were evicted when Serbian and Bosnian fans clashed in Garden Square in 2009, with chairs and other objects thrown. There was wild behaviour on the outside courts in 2020, when Greek fans were booted out for “disruptive behaviour”.
But are Australian tennis fans any rowdier than at the other grand slams?
While some in the international media said they felt the Australian Open crowds had become more intrusive and disrespectful in recent years, they said they paled in compagainst the crowds at the French and US Opens. A straw poll of foreign media who have covered all grand slams, conducted anonymously and unscientifically, suggested fans at Roland Garros were the most partisan, antagonistic and intrusive. The US Open received an honourable mention.
“The crowds are worse at the French and US, but Australian crowds have become rowdier. But count the number of bars they have. The people are not coming for the tennis,” said one veteran tennis writer who could not be named due to his employer’s restrictions on talking in other media.
“But I come for the sport not the other stuff. Now they want more people to come for the other stuff and not the tennis.”
Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis were a huge drawcard.Credit: Getty Images
The players themselves can play a part in how crowds behave. When Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis won doubles in 2023, they spent much of the tournament priming the crowd – “the rowdier the better” – then Kyrgios complained when noise interrupted his serve.
Matthew Futterman from The Athletic, the sports arm of the New York Times, said he felt the innovations at the Australian Open were the way of the future for a sport that needed to loosen up.
“You probably always see something at every tournament where a player doesn’t like something somebody does in the crowd. You even see it at Wimbledon, maybe because it’s so incredibly quiet that the slightest disruption really throws things. My personal take is that I kind of like tennis crowds being rowdy and more like crowds in other sports,” Futterman said.
“I think it’s a big problem for the sport that when you buy a ticket to attend a match you’re told to sit still, be quiet, and don’t move for three hours. And that doesn’t sound like a very fun way to spend an afternoon.
“I mean, it’s a tough call on whether it’s harder to play an Aussie here or a Frenchman in Paris. You’d have to ask the players what they think. But, as someone who’s watched both repeatedly, it’s pretty intense in those situations.
“Court Six is tennis as it ought to be. 100 per cent I feel that way. I mean talk to Frances Tiafoe, he feels that way. Jessica Pegula, whose father owns a couple of sports teams in America [the Buffalo Bills in the NFL and Buffalo Sabres in the NHL), she has no problem with it.
“I think 95 per cent of the people who come here don’t come for tennis. I think they come to spend a great day at a great event.”
Molly Dwyer, who drove from the Mornington Peninsula to attend the Open, believes Australian tennis crowds love the banter.
“We’re quite an energetic crowd. Like, obviously [in] footy and rugby and stuff, they’re quite talkative,” she says.
Coming from the United States to watch the Australian Open, Cecilia Silvera has been watching tennis since the 1970s and went to the 1986 and 2022 US Opens.
“Back in the days, there was silence,” she said. “Here, now, everybody’s loud. I think it’s disrespectful.”
“I don’t mind the fans, once in a while, but, yeah, it is distracting sometimes,” says Joseph Sas, who flew in with Silvera and watched the 2022 US Open with her.
Tiley said, while some fans and players would prefer silence, the reality was the fans paid the wages of the players, a point Collins latched onto in her provocative interactions with the crowd.
Appealing to a broad fan base was crucial, Tiley said.
“I’m constantly trying to educate the players on the importance of them engaging with the fans brings more fans, helps the whole ecosystem, lifts their profile, and they’ve got to get more used to that. And traditionally, tennis players have not thought along those lines. So it’s got a lot better and lot more improved.
“We’re not going to pull back on the sorts of things we’re doing for the fans to engage. Get used to it. It’s a balance.”
With Gabriela Sumampow
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