“one of the worst things you could say to a black tennis player”. <\/a><\/p>\nWithout naming Townsend, Latvian Ostapenko wrote on Instagram: “Hi all – I wanted to apologise for some of the things I said during my second-round singles match.<\/p>\n
“English is not my native language, so when I said education I was speaking only about what I believe as tennis etiquette. But I understand how the words used could have offended many people beyond the tennis court.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“I appreciate the support as I continue to learn and grow as a person and a tennis player. Goodbye New York and I look forward to being back next year.”<\/p>\n
The incident occurred at the end of the match when the two players met to shake hands.<\/p>\n
Ostapenko, 28, confronted Townsend for not apologising for a net cord, which had occurred during the first set, then accused the American of having “no education”.<\/p>\n
A net-cord winner is when a player wins a point because their shot hits the tape of the net and lands on the side of their opponent.<\/p>\n
It is not a rule to apologise for a net cord, but some players feel it courteous to do so.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
After the confrontation, on-court microphones picked up 29-year-old Townsend telling Ostapenko to “take the L [loss]”.<\/p>\n
Townsend, the world number one doubles player, then whipped the crowd into a frenzy by celebrating with them wildly.<\/p>\n
Boos rang around Court 11 as Ostapenko departed.<\/p>\n
Ostapenko, who described Townsend as “disrespectful” on Instagram after the match, posted later on Wednesday to deny accusations of racism.<\/p>\n
“I was never racist in my life,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
“I respect all nations of people in the world, for me it doesn’t matter where you come from.”<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Ostapenko’s US Open came to an end on Thursday, when she lost a doubles match with Barbora Krejcikova.<\/p>\n
She failed to fulfil media duties afterwards, citing medical issues.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756632009_729_\"\/)
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jelena Ostapenko has apologised for accusing opponent Taylor Townsend of having “no education” earlier this week. American Townsend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[62022,49,48,58991,82,23967,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-109513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-american-townsend","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-jelena-ostapenko","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-taylor-townsend","14":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}