Australian fans talk of Wimbledon

29 Jun 2009, 9:32 am   -   Source: AAP
0 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
0
Noisy Australian fans at Wimbledon have been the talk of the tournament (Getty Images)

Noisy Australian fans at Wimbledon have been the talk of the tournament (Getty Images)

Australia's tennis players have been the envy of their peers at Wimbledon, thanks to their vocal fans.

Australia's tennis players have been the envy of their peers at Wimbledon, thanks to their vocal fans.

And Lleyton Hewitt can count on a rousing reception when he takes on Czech No.23 seed Radek Stepanek in the round of 16 tonight.

Clad in green and gold, an impressive band of supporters turned up at Court No.2 on Saturday, first trying in vain to spur Samantha Stosur to a comeback against Ana Ivanovic.

When Hewitt followed on the same court, they jumped up and down, chanted and sang as their countryman secured a comfortable victory over Philipp Petzschner of Germany.

"It was fantastic, it was a great feeling out there," Hewitt said.

"I had the whole crowd behind me, which was great.

"I think they camped out again last night to watch obviously myself and Sam play."

Last week, the Australian fans' antics prompted British women's No.1 Anne Keothavong to call on local supporters to follow suit.

Her doubles partner, Sarah Borwell, also said she was disappointed by the reserved home crowd, claiming all she could hear was "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" as they lost to Stosur and Rennae Stubbs.

Stosur had remarked more than once that she felt as though she was playing in front of a home crowd much of the time.

On Saturday, there were suggestions a steward had asked the Australian fans to pipe down.

The chair umpire, meanwhile, just gave a few polite and good-natured reminders that play was ready to resume when their singing went on too long during Hewitt's match.

"I thought they were fine out there today," Hewitt said.

"I felt the whole crowd was really into it, it was a good atmosphere."

Having heard most of their playlist before, Hewitt was not distracted when by tunes as diverse as the "C'mon, C'mon" from Gary Glitter's I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am), You're the Voice by John Farnham and Moving Pictures' 1980s hit What About Me.

When Lauryn Hill's Oh Pretty Baby became "Oh Pretty Lleyton", the entire crowd burst out laughing, although Hewitt was deep in concentration at that point.

"It's a background noise, a lot of it," he said.

"It works perfectly for me because I can feed off them when I need to."
 

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.