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15 January 2025, 10:13 GMT
Australian Open 2025
Dates: 12-26 January Venue: Melbourne Park
Coverage: Live radio commentary on Tennis Breakfast from 07:00 GMT on BBC 5 Sports Extra, plus live text commentaries on the BBC Sport website and app
Britain’s Harriet Dart said the atmosphere during her Australian Open second-round defeat was “like a football match” and called for greater “respect” from fans.
Lucky loser Dart, who only discovered she had a place in this year’s main draw one hour before her opening match on Monday, took the first set against Croatia’s 18th seed Donna Vekic but was beaten 4-6 6-0 6-2.
Dart’s issue with the court 14 crowd came on a day when rowdy supporter behaviour fell under the spotlight amid other incidents at Melbourne Park.
“I felt like I was at a football match. Obviously it’s great to have lots of people there watching and everything but I also think there has to be respect towards both players,” said Dart, 28.
“I think a few people were about to be kicked out. I can only really compare it to the Billie Jean King Cup and I don’t even think I’ve had it be like that before.
“I think [the umpire] did as best as she could – maybe there should be a stricter policy in terms of if people are doing something, if they do it more than once they are out, but I don’t make those rules.”
Dart had struck the first blow in the deciding set before world number 19 Vekic won five straight games to complete her victory.
Elsewhere, the chair umpire had to make several appeals for respect towards the players during Jack Draper’s match against Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis on John Cain Arena.
The home crowd attempted to unsettle Draper throughout the four-and-a-half hour contest, but the British number one said the “electric atmosphere” gave him energy and he responded by cupping his ear to the crowd on several occasions.
Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime’s match against Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina was moved from court eight because the players complained about the noise coming from neighbouring courts.
Boisterous French crowds gathered to watch Arthur Cazaux against Britain’s Jacob Fearnley on court six, which has a bar, and on court three, where Ugo Humbert was facing Lebanon’s Hady Habib.
“I actually didn’t really look at the court before I went on, so when I saw the bar I was thinking it’s going to be a pretty rowdy atmosphere,” said Fearnley.
“I blocked it out as much as I could. Obviously there was some supporters who were extremely drunk, but it was a great atmosphere, amazing atmosphere.”
Burrage makes Gauff work for victory
Like Dart, fellow Briton Jodie Burrage gave a good account of herself but was unable to pull off a huge upset as she missed out on a place in the third round.
Burrage lost 6-3 7-5 to Coco Gauff after the 25-year-old failed to serve out the second set and take the American third seed to a decider in Wednesday’s night session on Rod Laver Arena.
Burrage, ranked 173rd in the world, had the chance to take the match into a third set when she served for the second at 5-3, but a poor service game allowed Gauff to reassert her authority.
While not taking her opportunity to win at least a set against one of the world’s best will sting, Burrage can reflect proudly on how she has revived her career.
Burrage has been beset by injuries and, after missing another six months last year, she contemplated retirement.
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Wrist and ankle injuries left Burrage not knowing “how much fight” she had left. But she persevered because of her love for the sport and delivered one of the finest wins of her career against French qualifier Leolia Jeanjean in the Melbourne first round.
The reward was the meeting with 2023 US Open champion Gauff on one of the sport’s biggest stages.
While previous appearances on Wimbledon’s Centre Court and the US Open’s Louis Armstrong Stadium were chastening, Burrage settled well against the 20-year-old after another slow start.
The Englishwoman showed courage to fight back from a break down in the second set, winning four successive games, but cracked when the unlikely chance of forcing a decider appeared.
Gauff’s relief at winning in two sets was illustrated with the message she wrote on the on-court camera lens afterwards: “Digging deep.”
Speaking in her on-court interview moments later, she added: “It was tough, she was serving really well so I was just trying to manage that.
“She really stepped her level up in the middle of the second set so I was just trying to be offensive when I could.”
Elsewhere on day four, Britain’s Maia Lumsden and Czech partner Anna Siskova reached the second round of the women’s doubles with a 6-4 7-5 win over Georgia’s Oksana Kalashnikova and Varvara Gracheva of France.
