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smartguy24 wrote:

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My womens draw has turned out to be epically shitty.

Edinboro and anybody else who picked Dokic are looking geniuses.

Has nobody commented on the chair throwing brawl? Fucking crazy Aussies. I always thought they were the most batshit insane of the 4 majors.

Violence has erupted at the Australian Open with rival Serbian and Bosnian fans hurling chairs and missiles at each other as the tournament was once again marred by ethnic tensions.

Some 30 people in their late teens and early 20s were evicted after the clashes, which left one woman injured, following Serbian Novak Djokovic's win over Bosnian-born American Amer Delic, police said.

Disturbances continued outside the tennis centre after the men and women were thrown out.

In unprecedented scenes, the two sets of supporters gathered at Garden Square outside Rod Laver Arena after the match with the riot sparked by one of the group throwing an object at the others.

Dozens of chairs were hurled as passers-by cowered before police and security guards quickly stepped in.

One woman was hit on the head by a chair and needed treatement for cuts and bruises, with two people charged with riotous behaviour and discharging a missile.

"A number of people got into a chair-throwing contest between two groups with the result that 30-odd people were ejected from Rod Laver," said Inspector Chris Duthie of Melbourne East Police.

"We're charging two on summons and one will be receiving an on-the-spot fine.

"The matter was dealt with very quickly and very effectively by the police and we expect no more problems at this stage."

The tension had been rising all week, reflected in minor incidents of rowdiness at matches and Delic had appealed on his website for calm, but to no avail.

"I'm really sad to hear about that," Delic said. "There's absolutely no place for that here. This is a tennis match.

"As I'm sure you all saw at the end, I mean, Novak and I are friends.

"We're both competitors, obviously. In the end it was a fair match, and there was no reason for such things," he said after the 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 defeat.

"There's only so much we can say. You can't stop and control everybody.

"Somebody gets drunk, you know, they want to cause trouble. It happens."

The Australian Open has gained an unsavoury reputation for ethnic clashes.

In 2007, the tournament was overshadowed when Serbian and Croatian fans, wearing the national colors of the bitter Balkan rivals, attacked each other with flagpoles, bottles and boots.

Then last year, police used pepper spray to subdue rowdy elements of the crowd watching a match between Konstantinos Economidis of Greece and Chile's Fernando Gonzales.

* Around 150 fans were evicted from Melbourne Park on the opening day of the 2007 tournament after vicious fighting flared between rival Croat and Serb supporters. The fans attacked each other with bottles and flagpoles. Police were caught on the back foot by the first time such violence had flared in more than 100 years of grand slam tennis.

* In 2008, fans of Greek descent were subdued by police pepper spray after trouble erupted during a match between Fernando Gonzalez of Chile and Konstantinos Economidis, a Greek qualifier on Margaret Court Arena. The match had to be stopped for 10 minutes as the fans were removed from the stadium by police.

* Former finalist Phil Dent warned at the 2009 tournament that disruptive fans with ethnic ties at the Open were certain to cause a riot unless there was a security crackdown. Dent was outraged at the behaviour of teenage fans supporting the Bosnian-born American Amer Delic in the first-round match against his American son Taylor. "I've got to tell you their behaviour would not be accepted anywhere in the world," Dent told local radio.

* In 2009 police escorted at least five fans from Melbourne Park after narrowly averting an all-out brawl. Security moved in after tensions had boiled over in the match between Croatian Marin Cilic and Serbian Janko Tipsarevic. Punches were later thrown in a scuffle near a packed bar.

* Ethnic tension burst into violent crowd scenes after Serb Novak Djokovic's third-round win against Bosnian-born Delic. Groups of rival fans hurled chairs at each other in the beer garden outside centre court when simmering tension boiled over under the hot Melbourne sun. One woman was knocked cold when a chair struck her head. Police arrested two men and ejected another 30 people from the grounds.