CEO Apologizes for Viral Hat-Snatching Moment at US Open | Entrepreneur

Over the weekend, a video posted on various social media platforms showed a child waiting for a signature from Kamil Majchrzak after his match at the U.S. Open on Thursday. The Polish tennis player takes off his hat and hands it, seemingly, to the boy, before an adult man next to him reaches in and snatches it away like a seagull at the beach.

Naturally, the video went mega-viral, and Internet sleuths quickly identified the culprit as Piotr Szczerek, the CEO of a Polish paving company. On Monday, Szczerek apologized for the incident “unequivocally” in a post on Facebook.

Try watching this without cringing pic.twitter.com/5uwmIAmOXN

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“In connection with the incident that occurred during Kamil Majchrzak match at the US Open, I would like to unequivocally apologize to the young boy, his family, all the fans, and the player himself,” the post begins. “I take full responsibility for my extremely poor judgment and hurtful actions. It was never my intent to steal away a prized memento from the young fan.”

Szczerek wrote that he was “caught up in the heat of the moment and the joy of the victory” and during the excitement, he “believed Majchrzak was handing a hat to me to give to my sons, who had previously asked for autographs.”

“I apologize to everyone I let down,” Szczerek said.

Szczerek says he sent the hat back to the boy and noted the fiasco is “a painful but necessary lesson in humility.”

After all the attention, the boy who missed out on the hat got something even better — he met with Majchrzak and walked away with even more swag.