It is another edition of U.S. Open fans gone wild — at least, this time, there were no kids involved.
As Jannik Sinner celebrated after his dominant win over Alexander Bublik on Monday night, a fan appeared to reach for the zipper on the top seed’s bag before security intervened.
It is unclear what the fan had in mind — and he put his hands up quickly in a backing-off motion as soon as security reached for him.
It comes less than a week after Polish CEO Piotr Szczerek snatched a hat away from a young fan following Kamil Majchrzak’s win over Karen Khachanov on Thursday.
Szczerek was identified after the initial outcry and put through the public ringer until he apologized on his company’s Instagram account Monday.
“I would like to unequivocally apologize to the boy who was harmed, his family, as well as all the fans and the player himself,” Szczerek wrote on Instagram. “I made a serious mistake. In the emotions, in the crowd’s joy after the victory, I was convinced that the tennis player was handing the cap in my direction — for my sons, who had earlier asked for autograph. It is a painful but necessary lesson in humility for me.”
This new fan may be lucky that he was not allowed to complete whatever he was planning, as much like Szczerek’s act, it was caught on video — and is quickly gaining steam on social media.
Footage was tweeted out by popular account @Olly_Tennis_, which has over 50,000 followers.
“This guy tried to steal something from Sinner’s bag,” the message with the video read.
“It’s surely making the rounds on the Web, make this act as viral as possible, plus he had even given him the towel … and caught on camera too. Imbecile,” one fan wrote on X.
“That’s disgraceful. I’m glad the security did their job but this fan or any fan that’s not a kid shouldn’t be getting within arms length of Sinner here in my opinion,” tennis writer Pavvy G wrote.
The interaction with the fan was the only bit of drama Sinner faced on Monday as he dominated Bublik, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, to reach the quarterfinals in his U.S. Open title defense.
Sinner will face fellow Italian and No. 10 seed Lorenzo Musetti on Wednesday.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
