Open flare-ups hard to stop

MELBOURNE – Australian Open officials admit violence is nearly impossible to eradicate despite unprecedented security following the third ethnic clashes here in as many years.

Tournament director Craig Tiley said it was hard to stop every incident, with organisers concentrating on preventing as many as possible and stamping out any flare-ups quickly.
‘It is hard to have people walk through the site in large numbers and not to have an incident between three or four individuals, but our action against that is swift and quick,’ Tiley told AFP.
Hundreds of thousands of fans pass through Melbourne Park over the two-week tournament with many gulping beer at the Garden Square big-screen area where Serbian and Bosnian fans brawled on Friday.
They hurled plastic chairs at each other, knocking one Bosnian woman to the ground as she was hit on the head. About 30 men were ejected as skirmishes continued outside.
The latest incident came despite increased CCTV surveillance after similar clashes over the past two years.
In 2007, Serbian and Croatian fans attacked each other with flag poles and bottles and last year, police used pepper spray to subdue rowdy elements of the crowd watching a match between Konstantinos Economidis and Fernando Gonzales.
Tiley said nearly all of Melbourne Park, which includes three main arenas, two show courts and 19 outside courts on the edge of the city centre, was now covered by CCTV cameras which are monitored constantly.
‘If we recognise someone that is potentially going to de disruptive, through the CCTV we monitor what they’re doing and how they’re moving through the site,’ he said. – Nampa-AFP