A protester set fire to part of the court and an arm during a match at the Laver Cup tennis event on Friday, hours before Roger Federer played for the last time before retiring.
The episode briefly delayed action early in the second set of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ 6-2, 6-1 win for Team Europe over Team Rest of the World’s Diego Schwartzman at The O2 Arena.
The activist, carrying a lighter and wearing a white T-shirt with a message about private jets, made his way to the black court and sat near the net. The person was eventually removed by security guards.
“He came out of nowhere. … An incident like this has never happened on the court,” Tsitsipas, the 2021 French Open runner-up, said afterward. “I hope he’s okay.”
Tsitsipas spoke to the chair umpire to make sure it would be safe to continue playing and asked for a mark left on the court to be cleaned.
The protester “has been arrested and the police are handling the situation,” Copa Laver organizers said in a statement.
Federer, a 20-time Grand Slam champion, was scheduled to compete hours later on Friday, teaming with Rafael Nadal in a doubles match.
Federer, 41, has not played a competitive match since Wimbledon in July 2021 and is ending his playing career after a series of surgeries on his right knee.
There have been other instances of high-profile tennis matches being interrupted in recent years, including the 2009 final at Roland Garros, when a man approached Federer and tried to place a hat on his head.
At this year’s French Open in June, a protester wearing a T-shirt with the message “We have 1,028 days left” disrupted the men’s semifinal between Casper Ruud and Marin Cilic — the 2014 US Open champion — by tying herself to the net with metal wires and glue and kneeling on the court.
