A severe weather alert earlier in the week at the Citi Open in Washington D.C. led to a heated exchange during a player practice session that was all caught on video.
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Bernard Tomic and Viktor Troicki were practicing Monday at the combined ATP and WTA event. Unknown to them at the time, a severe weather alert was issued for the D.C. area. That prompted a U.S. Park Police officer to enter the court they were on and told both of them to leave immediately.
“You wanna knock it off now?, the officer says before adding “Let’s go” to Troicki. “We’re not playing tennis. You don’t want to stop, do you?” The officer adds “Because it’s severe weather.”
Troicki says, “It’s not raining.” Tomic then approaches and says “Excuse me, it’s not raining.”
The officer can then be seen getting very close to Tomic who tries to back away. The officer then says, “It doesn’t matter. Get off the court.”
Both players eventually left the court.
Later, Troicki in an interview with the Washington Post, said that the officer threatened to arrest him if he did not leave. Troicki said if the officer had told them what was happening in a more civil manner, they would have complied.
“If he was just said it nicely, and if he said, ‘Storm is coming, guys we’re taking care of you. Big storm is coming, get off the court please. It’s dangerous. It’s our job to keep you safe.’ (Then) no problem. We got it. No worries,” Troicki said. “The way they came at us and (how) they started to talk to us was crazy.”
The Citi Open is played on property own by the U.S. Park Service, which is why an U.S. Park Police officer was involved. Tournament officials said that they had informed both players about the weather issue several times, though Troicki in the interview says he never received such information.
Tournament officials later spoke to Tomic about the situation and said the Australian understood why it occured.