Tennis player Yulia Putintseva expressed her concerns about a fan at Wimbledon, demanding he be kicked out before she resumed her match.
During the first set of Putintseva’s first round match against Amanda Anisimova on Monday, June 30, Puntintseva could be heard complaining about a “dangerous” and “crazy” fan in the crowd at Court 15 of London’s All England Lawn Tennis Club.
“Can you take him out?” Putintseva, 30, asked the chair umpire. “I’m not going to continue playing until he leaves.”
Putintseva, the No. 33 ranked women’s tennis player in the world, gestured behind the area where she had just served, telling the umpire the fan in question was wearing green.
“Maybe he has a knife and he will attack after, I don’t know,” Putintseva said.
The chair umpire spoke to two members of the security team, who assured Putintseva that proper security measures were in place.
Putintseva lost 6-0, 6-0 to Anisimova, 23, and did not speak to reporters after the match.
In a statement to TNT Sports after the incident, the tournament 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.”
A Wimbledon spokesperson declined to reveal whether the spectator was ejected.
According to The Athletic, one person in attendance at the match said the fan had been speaking in Russian about the war in Ukraine.
Putintseva has represented Kazakhstan since 2012 but was born and raised in Moscow. She formerly represented Russia before making the change more than a decade ago.
After the match, Anisimova told the BBC she heard the fan saying something when Putintseva was “about to serve.”
“I am sure that we were protected,” Anisimova, an American, said of the security precautions in place.
The incident came on the heels of Wimbledon preventing a man accused of stalking tennis star Emma Raducanu from buying tickets to this year’s tournament.
The fan was given a restraining order after displaying “fixated behavior” toward Raducanu, 22, at the Dubai Tennis Championships in February. It was determined he had attempted to obtain Wimbledon tickets through the public ballot.
Prior to the start of the tournament, All England Lawn Tennis Club chief executive Sally Bolton told reporters “the safety and well-being of all the players is our absolute top priority.”
“The recent incidents coming to light have certainly been recognized, the concern that’s been generated by that,” Bolton said. “But we have in place and have had for many years processes for ensuring the safety of our players and that’s in liaison with law enforcement agencies, specialist security teams. We liaise with both tours. And that is year round, that’s not just in preparation for the championships.”
She added, “It’s a bit like the broader security for the grounds. We are putting in place measures that are reflective of the threat and risk profile at the time, but it’s absolutely a top priority for us. We probably wouldn’t at this point comment on any details in respect of any individual athlete, but that intelligence is being gathered working with those other parties throughout the year to make sure that we’ve got the right measures in place come the championships.”
