MELBOURNE, Australia — A heckler interrupted Alexander Zverev’s Australian Open final speech, appearing to make reference to the allegations of domestic abuse levied against him by two of his former partners, Olya Sharapova and Brenda Patea.
Zverev lost his third Grand Slam final against Jannik Sinner, 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-2, and stepped up to the microphone to speak after receiving his runner’s-up trophy.
Before he spoke, a woman in the crowd appeared to shout: “Australia believes Olya and Brenda! Australia believes Olya and Brenda!”
Zverev looked up to the crowd as noise rippled across the stadium, smiling to himself. A few boos and bits of applause followed before Zverev began his speech. The German did not make reference to the heckling when he spoke.
“I believe there are no more accusations. There haven’t been for, what, nine months now. Good for her, I think she was the only one in the stadium who believed anything in that moment,” Zverev said in his news conference when asked about the incident.
“I think I’ve done everything I can, and I’m not about to open that subject again.”
Sharapova, a Russian former tennis player, said that Zverev repeatedly abused her in 2019 in New York, Shanghai, Monaco and Geneva. She never involved the criminal justice system, making her allegations in a lengthy article in the online magazine Slate and on social media.
The ATP decided to take no further action in January 2023 following a 15-month independent investigation that included extensive interviews with Zverev, Sharapova, and 24 others including family, friends and other players, as well as analysis of text messages, audio files and photographs.
Patea, the mother of Zverev’s child, alleged that he pushed her against a wall and choked her during an argument. She brought charges against Zverev in Berlin’s Tiergarten court and in October 2023, a judge imposed a €450,000 ($489,000; £384,000) penalty order on Zverev in connection with the charges. Zverev, who denied the allegations, called the penalty order “bulls***” in a news conference at the Paris Masters in November, adding: “Anybody that has a semi-standard IQ level knows what this is all about.”
Zverev appealed the penalty order, which led to a public trial that began May 31, 2024 in Berlin. In advance of the trial, the court released contextual information on the case:
“The defendant, a well-known German professional athlete, must answer for the accusation of intentional bodily harm,” it said.
“In May 2020, he is said to have briefly choked his then-partner’s neck with both hands in the stairwell of a Berlin apartment building during an argument. The alleged victim is said to have suffered shortness of breath and considerable pain.”
The trial was scheduled to run during the French Open and Wimbledon on non-consecutive days, but Zverev settled the case out of court, as announced June 7. A Tiergarten district court spokesperson confirmed that the settlement and end of the trial “is not a verdict and it is not a decision about guilt or innocence.”
Neither party’s lawyers commented on the nature of the settlement.
Zverev’s defeat by Sinner was his third loss in three Grand Slam finals.