A professional women’s tennis event got off to a weird and shocking start over the weekend in Hawaii, when a local opera singer took the mic to sing the German national anthem for one of the competitors, Andrea Petkovic. But instead of singing an updated version of the song, he sang an outdated stanza last used by the Nazis, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” or “Germany, Germany above all else.”
“I have never felt so disrespected in my life,” Petkovic told Yahoo! a reporter on Saturday. “It was an absolute effrontery and insolence of the very worst kind.” Petkovic would go on to lose her match against American Alison Riske. U.S. Tennis Association president did immediately apologize the German team captain, then the USTA issued an apology, dubbed by Deadspin as “weak-ass“—an assessment I am inclined to agree with.
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.