Melbourne beefs up security to prevent fan clashes

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Heightened security should prevent the sort of outbursts of crowd violence that affected last year's Australian Open, organisers said on Thursday.

Croatian and Serbian fans fought and chanted insults at each other at last year's tournament, resulting in 150 people being ejected from the venue by police and security officials.

"Any behavior that's going to harm the fan-friendly environment...we're going to have zero tolerance for it," tournament director Craig Tiley told reporters.

"We're confident the procedures that the Victoria Police put in place are going to deal with any of the issues that come up.

"We're also confident that we'll send a very clear message that any type of behavior that crosses the line, impacting on a fan-friendly environment, will be dealt with."

Victoria Police superintendent John Cooke said there would be a significant presence off officers, including more CCTV cameras at the grand slam, which begins on January 14.

He added that police officers would be given discretion to determine what sort of behavior was considered unruly.

"We will not accept inappropriate crowd behavior," Cooke said. "Anyone caught doing the wrong thing will face eviction or being turned away at the entrance."

(Reporting by Greg Stutchbury; Editing by Alastair Himmer)