Placeholder Content Image

"He's boring": Spectator who flipped off Nadal has her say

<p>The woman who heckled Rafael Nadal on Rod Laver Arena has zero regrets after gaining worldwide attention for her astonishing attack on the Spanish athlete.</p> <p>Everyone in the arena was left stunned after the rogue spectator took it upon herself to liven up proceedings during Nadal's second round win over American qualifier Michael Mmoh, forcing play to stop as security escorted her out.</p> <p>Just before Nadal was gearing up to serve, the woman yelled out: "Hurry up, you OCD f***."</p> <p>She then flipped Nadal the bird.</p> <p>The star was stunned but managed to see the funny side as he laughed it off, later suggesting the offender may have had a bit too much "gin and tequila" before her brazen stunt.</p> <p>The woman appeared on radio on Friday morning to explain her version of events, showing absolutely no remorse for hijacking events on centre court.</p> <p>“I’m certainly not a fan of Nadal, I think he’s boring and he goes through all those OCD rituals all the time,” she told Neil Mitchell on 3AW.</p> <p>“The very fact pictures of me have gone viral around the world reflects on how incredibly boring his matches are, because why would you want to focus on a spectator?</p> <p>“It’s a bit embarrassing. When I woke up this morning I had messages and phone calls from all sorts of different people.</p> <p>“It’s probably not a great look for me but you know, what can I do? What’s done is done.</p> <p>“I just called out, ‘Get over your OCD rituals’ as he was serving, and then he looked at me, and that’s when I flicked him the bird.</p> <p>“My daughter wasn’t too happy because I’m so embarrassing.</p> <p>“I was going for the other guy actually because so many people seem to go for Nadal.”</p> <p>The woman denied Nadal’s hypothesis she was enjoying gin or tequila, saying she only had one “glass of bubbly” all day.</p> <p>“Alcohol does make one become less inhibited but I’m pretty much like that anyway,” she said. “I’m a bit out there.”</p> <p>Calling herself a “tennis aficionado” who comes down to Melbourne from Sydney every year for the Australian Open, the woman wasn’t a fan of the way security handled the situation even though she had quickly become the most unpopular person at Melbourne Park.</p> <p>“They were very rude. They said, ‘Right, you have to go’ and I said, ‘Why? I’m a spectator, I’ve paid for my tickets, why aren’t I allowed to be a bit vocal?’” the woman told Mitchell.</p>

News

Placeholder Content Image

The heartbreaking moment that left Wimbledon spectators shattered

<p>Russian tennis legend Margarita Gasparyan has suffered one of the crueller exits from Wimbledon as an old injury flared up and left her unable to continue the match.</p> <p>The world no. 62 had victory in her sights as she was playing against 8th seed Elina Svitolina and took the first set 7-5 in 51 minutes. The domination continued into the second set as Elina caught up and served at 6-5 to level the match.</p> <p>Margarita has had knee troubles in the past and as the second set of the match came to a close, she looked to be in increasing amounts of pain.</p> <p>Her movement was impacted, and she was unable to stand up at 5-5, which led her to having to lie down on the grass court as the cramp was speculated to be the reason behind her collapse.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"> <p dir="ltr">Gasparyan in a lot of pain now. Leg appears to be cramping after landing on it after a serve. She’s lying on the ground, but seemed to tell umpire she’s ok, just cramping. 5-5, 0-30. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Wimbledon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Wimbledon</a></p> — WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) <a href="https://twitter.com/WTA_insider/status/1146386127072497670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2019</a></blockquote> <p>Margarita could only watch on as her rival brought her water and comforted her at the baseline as the pair waited for physio to arrive. The crowd could only watch on in silence as they waited for the outcome.</p> <p>Margarita continued to play, but barely managed to finish the game. She tried to get around the court as best she could without further aggravating her injury, but her opponent broke to take the lead at 6-5.</p> <p>The physio treated Margarita’s left quad in the changeover, but there was not much more to be done.</p> <p>She was in tears as she limped to the net to retire and continued to sob as she realised that her dreams of being in the third round were at her fingertips.</p> <p>Her opponent, Elina, was stunned. <span>S</span><span>he told </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/wimbledon/margarita-gasparyan-suffers-cruel-wimbledon-injury-heartbreak-while-leading-elina-svitolina/news-story/d2381871e5e6dc75894eda3e21fc928c" target="_blank">news.com.au</a><span>: </span><span>“Honestly, I was a little bit shocked. It’s never nice to get this when someone is injured like that. It puts you a little bit off.</span></p> <p><span></span><span>“At the end we’d expect that she would go and play. Yeah, it happened that way and really unfortunate for her.</span></p> <p>“You give her some water, because I know when there is cramps you need to drink lots of water. Your muscles are contracting, so it’s important just to drink lots of fluids.</p> <p>“So that’s why I gave her some water, because no one really did anything. I mean, we were trying to help, but, yeah, it’s tough to react straight away.”</p>

Body

Our Partners