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Hooliganism back at Aus Open

Melbourne - Hooliganism again marred the Australian Open on Monday with 11 people thrown out of Melbourne Park for unruly behaviour and another group banned from entering.

The rowdy crowd gathered on court six and were ejected after standing on chairs and shouting during Croatian Ivo Karlovic's match against Czech Radek Stepanek.

One supporter was found carrying two flares.

Security guards marched the troublemakers from the grounds of the opening Grand Slam of the season with the help of police.

Earlier in the day, around 60 chanting Croats lit flares and made offensive and threatening gestures as they headed enmasse to the tournament.

The Herald Sun newspaper said one of its photographers was spat on and punched as he photographed the mob.

Victoria state police superintendent Jock Menzel denied security had failed by allowing the flares to be smuggled into the complex.

"Security processes and procedures are very tight, you must understand people are innovative and they will go to great lengths to smuggle contraband into the particular venue, it does happen quite frequently," he said.

Menzel added that police assisted security staff in ejecting Karlovic's supporters, who have been banned for the rest of the tournament.

"These 11 people were disruptive, they were standing on seats and they were causing problems for the other spectators who were there to watch the game," he said.

"Tennis Australia and Victoria Police, we won't tolerate poor behaviour and we've demonstrated that.

"We're here to set a standard. Our mission is to make sure the event occurs in a happy and safe way and that people are safe, and we're going to make sure that occurs."

Racial tensions and trouble have marred the Australian Open in recent years with Serbs and Croats among the worst offenders.

Some of the worst scenes were on the opening day of the 2007 tournament when Serbian and Croatian fans, wearing the national colours of the bitter Balkan rivals, attacked each other with flagpoles, bottles and boots.

Then in 2008, police used pepper spray to subdue rowdy elements of the crowd watching a match between Konstantinos Economidis of Greece and Chile's Fernando Gonzales.

There was more trouble last year with several people currently facing court over a fight between Serbian and Bosnian fans.

Since then, police numbers have been boosted and more CCTV cameras installed with police last week saying they were confident there would be no repetition of the brawls.

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