Topline
After days of social-media shaming, Piotr Szczerek, the CEO of a Polish paving company who was captured on video snatching a tennis player’s hat from a child at the U.S. Open, issued an apology on what appears to be the official social media accounts, claiming he returned the hat to the young boy.
Polish tennis player Kamil Majchrzak offered his hat to a young boy before it was snatched by a Polish CEO, in an incident that went viral online. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
Szczerek posted a statement Monday morning to what appears to be the Facebook and Instagram pages for Drogbruk, his paving company, acknowledging his viral hat-snatching incident was a “grave mistake,” according to a Google translation.
“I was convinced that the tennis player was passing the cap to me – for my sons, who had previously asked for autographs,” Szczerek said, referring to Kamil Majchrzak, the Polish tennis player who handed his hat to a young boy.
Szczerek apologized to the boy and his family and said he has since returned the hat to him.
Szczerek said other statements purporting to be from him, some of which have gone viral on social media, are not authentic.
What Happened With The Viral Hat-Snatching Incident?
Video of Szczerek appearing to snatch a hat from Majchrzak, who had just won a five-set match, went viral online. In the video, Majchrzak takes off the hat he was wearing and offers it to the boy before Szczerek, who was standing next to the child, snatches it. Majchrzak confirmed to the New York Post the man in the video is Szczerek, whom he said sponsors the Polish tennis federation. Majchrzak said there was “some kind of confusion” and did not initially realize Szczerek had taken the hat, suggesting he was “acting in the moment of heat, in the moment of emotions.” Majchrzak posted to his Instagram on Sunday that he met the boy after the incident and gave him gifts, including a new hat.
Tangent
Szczerek was roasted online following the incident. One post on X, which was liked more than 150,000 times, branded Szczerek “selfish” and accused him of robbing a young boy of a memorable moment. Szczerek’s company was review-bombed across multiple platforms. On Yelp, Drogbruk has a one-star average rating, with more than 100 one-star reviews coming in over the weekend. The company also has a 1.4-star average rating on review platform Trustpilot. Szczerek’s caught-on-camera controversy drew some comparisons online to the viral Coldplay concert “kiss cam” incident, in which Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught embracing a woman who was not his wife and was an employee at his company. Byron and the employee quickly leapt out of frame, but the incident became a viral sensation and led to Byron’s resignation.
Further Reading
Tennis star Kamil Majchrzak meets young fan who had hat snatched from him in viral US Open video (CNN)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/09/01/polish-ceo-who-snatched-us-open-hat-apologizes-for-grave-mistake-after-global-shaming/
