AP Photo/Adam Hunger
Top-ranked German tennis player Alexander Zverev halted his marathon U.S. Open match Tuesday after a fan yelled an offensive pro-Hitler slogan in his direction.
Zverev was serving in the fourth set against Italy’s Jannik Sinner when he abruptly walked over to the umpire.
“He just said the most famous Hitler phrase there is in this world,” Zverev said of the offending spectator. “It’s not acceptable.”
After about a 10-minute search, security guards descended on a man and the chair umpire stopped the match so he could be removed.
As the crowd continued to cheer, security led the fan from his seat and out of the stadium. Zverev managed to regain his composure to win in five sets: 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. At 4 hours, 41 minutes, the match was the longest so far of the 2023 U.S. Open.
After the match, Zverev explained his quick reaction to the spectator’s offensive outburst: “I think he was getting involved in the match for a long time, though. I don’t mind it, I love when fans are loud, I love when fans are emotional. But I think me being German and not really proud of that history, it’s not really a great thing to do, and I think him sitting in one of the front rows, I think a lot of people heard it. So if I just don’t react, I think it’s bad from my side.”
“It’s his loss, to be honest, to not witness the final two sets of that match,” Zverev added.
German media explained, “When Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, the Nazi regime misused the (national anthem’s) first verse — ‘Deutschland über alles’ (Germany above all) — to emphasize what they saw as Germany’s superiority to all other nations.”
Zverev next plays defending U.S. Open champion Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.
Watch the clip above via ESPN.
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