Police use pepper spray to subdue rowdy fans

MELBOURNE, Australia – Did the fervent supporters of Greek tennis player Konstantinos Economidis step over the accepted line of behavior Tuesday night at the Australian Open?

Or did the local police simply overreact when they used pepper spray on rowdy crowd members watching the first-round match between Economidis and last year’s finalist, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile?

Those were the questions facing tournament officials on the second day of the event after a charged atmosphere at Margaret Court Arena led to the police action as the match was interrupted for about five minutes.

A scheduled news conference by the police to discuss the situation was canceled. In a somewhat comical exercise, reporters were ushered into a conference room at Rod Laver Arena and were asked to stand in two lines, waiting about 10 minutes before being told there would be no briefing.

Police have been on heightened notice for this year’s event after violence marred the 2007 tournament, when Croatian and Serbian supporters clashed and about 150 fans were ejected. Officials recently said there would be “zero tolerance” of fan misbehavior.

Gonzalez, who won in straight sets, said he had never played a match when police were moved to use pepper spray on the crowd.

“I see it was very noisy from both sides, but the police came in,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what happened with them. I saw that they threw spray. I know nothing else.”

He said it had been “fun to play like that,” comparing it to a Davis Cup atmosphere. Gonzalez did tell reporters, in Spanish, that one fan yelled a pejorative word at him, also in Spanish.

“It’s nothing that bad,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, they’re fans.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com