September 02, 2018 - Sebastian Baez in action against Dostanbek Tashbulatov during a Junior match at the 2018 US Open.
Sebastian Baez defeated local favourite Lorenzo Sonego 7-5, 7-6 in Naples in front of an unruly crowd
A video clip which shows the unruly behaviour of the Naples crowd at the Tennis Napoli Cup has gone viral on the internet. The video clip is from the Round of 32 match between Sebastian Baez and Lorenzo Sonego. Sixth seed Sebastian Baez eventually got the better of the local favourite in straight sets 7-5, 7-6 to progress to the pre-quarterfinals.
In the video clip, the Naples crowd can be seen disrupting play while Sebastian Baez was trying to serve in the second set. Despite several requests from the chair umpire, the unruly crowd didn’t stop their chants and the Argentine had to wait for close to a minute before he could make his serve. The crowd was clearly frustrated and wanted to disrupt Baez’s focus to help local favourite Sonego get back into the match. However, the chants hardly affected Baez who went on to end his 11-match losing streak on the ATP tour by registering a straight sets win.
In the next round, Baez will face the winner of the match between Chinese qualifier Zhizhen Zhang and Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.
The video clip has gone viral on the internet and reactions have poured in from fans on Twitter. Here’s what the fans feel about the crowd’s behaviour.
“Not all italians are like that!!There is here no tennis knowledge and only soccer culture”, wrote a fan.
“Italy has a big culture of tennis, it’s just very passional about it, yes it’s rude but is a different kind of rude than US rude which comes from ignorance”, another fan explained.
“Naples is in Italy like Marseille is in France : passion goes beyond everything”, read a tweet.
“italians do it better, everything…the rest of the world are only jealous”, tweeted another fan.
“The audience was screamin because the referee didn’t recognize the point to Sonego. Before you judge you should know facts”, a fan explained.
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