Naomi Osaka slammed Jelena Ostapenko after she described fellow tennis player Taylor Townsend, who is Black, as someone with “no class” and “no education.”
Ostapenko, who hails from Latvia, and Townsend got into an argument after the Black woman won their match at US Open second round on Wednesday, BBC reported. The argument in question ensued after Ostapenko claimed that Townsend refused to apologize after she scored a point with a net cord.
Though Ostapenko, who is a former French Open winner, drew the ire of the public over her comments, Townsend said she did not perceive what her opponent said to be racist.
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“I didn’t take it in that way, but also that has been a stigma in our community of being not educated, when it’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Townsend, 29, said.
Ostapenko also took to Instagram on Wednesday to claim she wasn’t being racist. But former world number one Osaka described her comments as “terrible.”
“I think it’s ill timing and the worst person you could have ever said it to,” Osaka, 27, said when she was asked about what Ostapenko told Townsend. “I don’t know if she knows the history of it in America. But I know she’s never going to say that ever again in her life. It was just terrible.”
She added: “I think obviously it’s one of the worst things you can say to a black tennis player in a majority white sport. I know Taylor and I know how hard she’s worked and I know how smart she is, so she’s the furthest thing from uneducated or anything like that.”
Fellow tennis player Coco Gauff also weighed in on Ostapenko’s comments and said she felt that the latter shouldn’t have uttered those words.
“I think it was a heat of the moment thing. I think Jelena was probably feeling emotions after she lost,” Gauff, 21, said. “I do think that shouldn’t have been said regardless of how you’re feeling, especially given those were the reasons that she stated. Knowing Taylor personally, she’s the opposite of that.”
