{"id":393242,"date":"2026-01-27T14:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393242\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T14:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:09:09","slug":"australian-open-star-accuses-bbc-pundits-of-thinking-tennis-is-only-for-white-people-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393242\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open star accuses BBC pundits of thinking ‘tennis is only for white people’ | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rising tennis player has slammed BBC<\/a> pundits for attacking Naomi Osaka<\/a>‘s bold outfit choices at the Australian Open<\/a>. Osaka raised eyebrows when she entered the court for her first-round match against Antonia Ruzic sporting a unique pre-match look<\/a>. She wore an ocean blue tie-dye tracksuit jacket and white wide-leg bottoms for the coin toss, along with a white umbrella.<\/p>\n

The jellyfish-inspired look was curated by fashion designer Robert Wun, who has previously worked on pieces worn by the likes of Beyonce, Cardi B and Ariana Grande. It came from a vision Osaka had while she was reading to her two-year-old daughter, Shai. Not everybody loved the outfit, though, with Jamie Murray and Eliza Wastcoat among those who weren’t impressed.<\/p>\n

Speaking on BBC<\/a> Radio 5 Live, Murray said: “I felt there was an element of disrespect to the sport of tennis,” while Wastcoat added: “It looked a bit cheap, a little bit tacky.”<\/p>\n

It came after Wastcoat lasted Osaka’s attire in a video on her Instagram<\/a> account, saying: “You are simply lying to yourself if you say you like Naomi Osaka’s walk on outfit.<\/p>\n

“You know what? I am tired of my own argument that anything that gets people talking about tennis is a good thing, because tacky and tasteless fashion choices do not do the heritage of tennis or fashion any justice.”<\/p>\n

Destanee Aiava, who was knocked out of the Australian Open<\/a> qualifiers, issued a frosty response to Murray and Wastcoat on social media.<\/p>\n

She wrote: “I really don’t think it’s that dramatic. Gosh no wonder this sport will always be seen as super stuffy to those on the outside.<\/p>\n

“Comments like this feel too elitist. God forbid any player attempts to do something a little bit different and out of the box.”<\/p>\n

Aiava later doubled down on her comments with an Instagram post, which read: “Just say you think tennis [is] only for the white people.<\/p>\n

“You people forget that the only reason people give a f*** about watching tennis these days is because of people like Naomi [Osaka], the Williams sisters, Coco [Gauff], even Nick [Kyrgios].<\/p>\n

“Controversy aside, y’all still talk about it, good or bad, because of them, because they’re not boring, even tho you s*** talk them. BFFR [be f***ing for real].”<\/p>\n

Osaka is no longer competing at the Australian Open, having withdrawn from the tournament before her scheduled third-round match against Maddison Inglis because of an injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rising tennis player has slammed BBC pundits for attacking Naomi Osaka‘s bold outfit choices at the Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[21399,126862,137006,145899,6564,147922,147921,147919,101,118,12700,147920,147918,20750,872,13797,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-393242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-australian-open-2026","tag-australian-open-news","tag-australian-open-scores","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-naomi-osaka-jellyfish","tag-naomi-osaka-outfit","tag-racial-elitism","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-section","tag-tennis-elitism","tag-tennis-fashion","tag-tennis-latest","tag-tennis-news","tag-tennis-scores","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}