Wimbledon: Victor Hanescu Spits At Crowd, Quits In Third Round Match; Spectators Arrested

For the fourth straight day, there was enormous drama at Court 18 at Wimbledon.

But after the three straight days of a riveting Isner-Mahut marathon that eventually ended with an award ceremony, Day 5 saw a spectacle on the same court that the tennis establishment will not be quite as proud of.
No. 31 Victor Hanescu of Romania was not having the best day. After winning the first two sets against German Daniel Brands, Hanescu lost the third and fourth, losing all momentum and putting his Wimbledon run in serious jeopardy.

Already plagued with a fifth set he couldn’t have seen coming, Hanescu was additionally troubled by pain in his hamstring.

Worse than that, after receiving treatment for the injury, hecklers in the normally staid Wimbledon crowd turned on him, mocking him and shouting “Victor is weak!”

Tennis crowds can get rowdier (drunker) at the end of the day (especially going into the weekend), but it’s still nothing Hanescu should be unaccustomed to as a veteran tour player.

But Hanescu snapped. He complained to the umpire about the crowd’s conduct saying “This isn’t working! They are talking about my injury! This isn’t working!”, but the umpire was unmoved.

Disheartened, Hanescu played dejected, largely effortless tennis in the next two games to go down 0-2.

As he was getting ready to serve in the third game of the fifth set, Hanescu, probably hearing more derisive comments, walked toward the crowd to his right and spat in their general direction.

The boos Hanescu was already hearing increased, and the chair umpire gave him a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Hanescu had had enough. He promptly lost the next four points, even intentionally standing on the baseline to be called for a foot fault on his final four serves.

Immediately after tanking the fourth point, Hanescu walked up to the chair umpire and went to shake his hand, thereby quitting the match. Hanescu then shook Brands’ hand as well, and quickly left the court as the crowd cheered Brands.

Changing the ending of the story slightly, SkyNews is now reporting via Twitter that four spectators who were at the match have been arrested.

To see how it all played out, here’s a (fairly crappy) video of the entire fifth set:

And here is a better angle on the spit, with Hanescu’s retirement as well:

Hanescu will almost certainly get fined for the incident, and possibly suspended. This is easily the worst behavior by any player since Serena at the US Open, an incident for which she received a record $85,000 fine.