{"id":1172,"date":"2023-01-25T16:10:57","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T17:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2025-06-20T11:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T11:02:52","slug":"fans-waving-russian-flags-detained-at-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/fans-waving-russian-flags-detained-at-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans waving Russian flags detained at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Displaying the country\u2019s tricolor has been banned at the Grand Slam tennis event<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Four people were detained and questioned by authorities after a Russian flag bearing the image of President Vladimir Putin was displayed at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament following a match between Serbia\u2019s Novak Djokovic and Russia\u2019s Andrey Rublev. <\/p>\n<p>A group of people congregated outside the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne after Djokovic\u2019s comprehensive three-set win, with chants of \u201c<em>Serbia, Russia<\/em>\u201d heard from the group, while a man wearing a \u2018Z\u2019 symbol on his T-shirt was also seen to be displaying the Russian flag. <\/p>\n<p>Another man was spotted wearing a \u2018Z\u2019 shirt inside the arena during the match.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after the organizers of the event, Tennis Australia, introduced a ban on the display of Russian and Belarusian flags shortly after the beginning of the tournament, when a fan displayed the Russian tricolor during a match between Ukraine\u2019s Kateryna Baindl and Russian player Kamilla Rakhimova.<\/p>\n<p>Russian and Belarusian players are free to compete at the tournament but without mention of their nationalities or other national symbols.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u203c\ufe0f\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\uddfa <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Serbian?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Serbian<\/a> fans brought the flag of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Russia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Russia<\/a> with a photo of Vladimir <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Putin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Putin<\/a> and the flag of the DPR to the central stadium of the Australian Open. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rfXZevsXsI\">pic.twitter.com\/rfXZevsXsI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Maimunka News (@MaimunkaNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaimunkaNews\/status\/1618262399353778177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 25, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201c<em>Four people in the crowd leaving the stadium revealed inappropriate flags and symbols and threatened security guards<\/em>,\u201d Tennis Australia said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Victoria Police intervened and are continuing to question them. The comfort and safety of everyone is our priority and we work closely with security and authorities<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The incident comes several days after Russia\u2019s Andrey Rublev complained to the chair umpire during his second-round match with Finland\u2019s Emil Ruusuvuori that supporters were verbally abusing him during the match, and draping a Ukrainian flag over advertising hoardings. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>It was not about the flag<\/em>,\u201d Rublev said afterwards. \u201c<em>I said straightaway to the referee, it\u2019s not about the flag, they can put any flag they want, I understand completely the situation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>It was more that they started to tell me bad words and bad things<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One Russian player, Karen Khachanov, remains on the men\u2019s side of the draw and will play Stefanos Tsitsipas in Friday\u2019s semifinal, while two Belarusian female players, Victoria Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka, are on course to meet in the Australian Open final provided they both win their semifinal matchups on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Displaying the country\u2019s tricolor has been banned at the Grand Slam tennis event Four people were detained and questioned by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marinemalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}