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Serbian-Croatian clash, tennis style

Fish: Don't throw out Roddick's exo win over Federer

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Mal Taam/MALTphoto

Serbian tennis player Jelena Jankovic tries to play tennis while nationalistic friction flares up with Croats and Serbians at the Australian Open.

FROM THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN - One observer said that there were a few chairs thrown, a couple of punches launched and a series of swift kicks to the legs. That's how the '07 Australian Open began, with big groups of Serbian and Croatian fans going at each other in the common areas outside of the arena. Some 150 fans were tossed off the grounds early in the day, although many of them likely had visions of completing a 24-hour pub run anyway.

That's not what you would call an inauspicious start to a Grand Slam, but it's one that has to be paid attention to. Why? Because as the sport continues reach across the globe, more and more fans from non-traditional tennis nations will attend events and, if their supporter training is in sports where unruly behavior is occasionally glorified (i.e. soccer, American football, Aussie Rules football), then it will take a significant amount of training from rational fans to teach them that screaming nationalistic slogans that have no relevance to the proceedings at hand have little relevance in the sport. Plus, pleading out loud for someone's errors isn't kosher either, nor is brawling near children in the mid-afternoon sun.

Will hooliganism creep it's way into tennis? Doubtful, but there was a sniff of it on Monday.

Word has it that in Melbourne, Croatian and Serbian immigrant groups have been going at hard for years when rooting for their local soccer clubs, which previously, were formed along ethnic lines. Now that there is more than a fair share of significant Croat and Serbian tennis players - Croatians Ivan Ljubicic, Mario Ancic and Karolina Sprem, and Serbians Novak Djokovic, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic just for starters - there is plenty of reason to show up at Melbourne.

Apparently, there's also a reason to show in Sydney, where last weekend, Serbian fans railed at Kim Clijsters during her final-round win over Jelena Jankovic.

"Here in Melbourne it's a little bit strange because I think it's just a sport and people should just come and enjoy the game," Jankovic said. "It's not about where you're from or … you either like the player and you'll cheer for them, but you don't have to cheer against them just because they are from some country, and I think that's wrong. … But I don't like when they are fighting against each other and kind of booing the other player just because they are from some other country. I think that's not fair. So that's just my opinion I think the game should just be fair and they should clap for good points and support the player they like, but they shouldn't be really mean and really bad and fight against the other just to make the other one feel bad."

Hopefully, Jankovic's advice will be taken seriously when Croat Marin Cilic takes on Serb Ilia Bozoljac on Tuesday. Things should be, as the Spaniards might say "tenistically" more civil.

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