Marcos Baghdatis defended his actions yesterday after being captured on video chanting anti-Turkish slogans with the Greek supporters' group involved in a clash with police at the Australian Open.
Videos circulating on the Internet, and broadcast here, show the Greek Cypriot, an Australian Open finalist in 2006, holding a flare and chanting "Turks Out of Cyprus" at a barbeque hosted by the Hellas Fan Club.
Members of the group were involved in a row at Melbourne Park on Tuesday that led to police using pepper spray to subdue rowdy fans, with 10 people ejected and three arrested.
PHOTO: AP
Baghdatis was shown arm-in-arm with the alleged ringleader of Tuesday's trouble, who has been banned from the rest of the tournament and is expected to be charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.
In one video, the world No. 16 holds a burning flare above his head and sings a chant with others condemning Turkish occupation of part of his homeland of Cyprus.
"Turks out of Cyprus," the group chants twice, after finishing singing the Greek national anthem, the Melbourne Age reported.
PHOTO: AP
The video was shot 10 months ago and surfaced on YouTube.
In a statement issued after the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) met with his management, Baghdatis offered no apology.
"In that video from 2007 I was supporting the interest of my country, Cyprus, while protesting against a situation that is not recognized by the United Nations," he said. "Now I would like to concentrate on the tournament and ask everyone to respect that. I love the Australian Open and want to do well here."
PHOTO: AP
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkey invaded the island's northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at union with Greece.
International efforts to reunify the island have stalled.
The Hellas Fan Club, which is part of a worldwide network of supporters of Hellenic athletes, said the slogans being chanted had been misconstrued.
"The `Turks out of Cyprus' chant is directed towards the well documented illegal occupation of Cyprus, and is not directed towards citizens of the Turkish ethnic minority," it said in a statement.
Earlier in the tournament, Baghdatis defended the Greek supporters involved in the ugly scenes this week during a match between Chilean Fernando Gonzalez and Konstantinos Economidis of Greece.
"I heard that the police came in and just started spraying, so I didn't think the fans did anything wrong," he said.
It emerged Friday that one of those thrown out that night was a cousin of Baghdatis, who was accused of pouring beer over a police officer's head.
His VIP pass was stripped by authorities for unruly behavior, the Sun Herald reported.
The Australian Turkish Cypriot Cultural and Welfare Association on Friday demanded an apology from Baghdatis.
"This is a straight-forward provocation of our community and he is playing a different game to sport, he is not being a sportsman and should apologize," president Hakki Suleyman told reporters.
Greek community groups played down the furore, with the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria saying relations between the city's Greek and Turkish communities were "great".
Baghdatis beat Marat Safin in a five-set thriller on Thursday and now plays Australian Lleyton Hewitt in the third round today.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS