Noisy fans add to sport's spectacle but loss of perspective and anger soon follows | Emma John
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Clashes between players and spectators at Australian Open is just another example of the shouty polarities of our age. Eva Asderaki-Moore probably loves her job. But there were times, during Novak Djokovic’s Australian Open win over Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday, when the chair umpire clearly had it with the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, please,” she pleaded. And then “That’s e-nough!” – which she enunciated like a schoolteacher marshalling her charges on a very long, very noisy, coach trip.
![[Emma John]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Emma-John,-R.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
You had to feel for her. What is tennis thinking, after all? It throws 15,000 people into an arena, whips them up into a state of delirium with some of the greatest feats of athleticism seen in a grand slam quarter-final, then expects pin-drop silence between points. At 1am? When some of these people have been drinking since lunchtime?.
![[Danielle Collins makes her point to the crowd after beating Destanee Aiava at the Australian Open.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f1f7dd93b2fc491ed7cd584969076da7af10ac03/0_297_4822_2893/master/4822.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The rowdy crowds have been as big a story at this year’s Australian Open as many of the featured players. The return of the “party court” – AKA Court 6, which got its own terraced bar last year – generated so much noise that a men’s singles match on a neighbouring court had to be moved further away mid-set. Meanwhile, anyone taking on a home favourite – and, heaven forfend, beating them – has been barracked in spirited Aussie fashion, as Jack Draper discovered in his back-to-back matches against Thanasi Kokkinakis and Aleksandar Vukic.
![['It gave me energy': Jack Draper feeds off hostile crowd in victory over Kokkinakis – video]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5c921f5bdb492285948a3f878918683d6a3a989c/0_232_4480_2519/4480.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Danielle Collins did not just take on the Melbourne-born Destanee Aiava in the second round, but most of those watching from the stands as well. She laughed afterwards that her “super drunk” haters were funding her next trip to the Bahamas with their ticket money, which only upped the ante. In her next match, a loss to her fellow American Madison Keys, she was booed on and off court. Not that Collins minded. “Good luck pissing somebody off or getting under the skin of somebody that really doesn’t care,” she said.
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