{"id":117770,"date":"2025-08-29T05:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117770\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T05:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T05:38:08","slug":"the-townsend-ostapenko-flap-remains-a-top-topic-at-the-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117770\/","title":{"rendered":"The Townsend-Ostapenko flap remains a top topic at the US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The postmatch back-and-forth between Taylor Townsend and Jelena Ostapenko<\/a> remained a topic of conversation at the U.S. Open<\/a> 24 hours later on Thursday \u2014 but not for Ostapenko, who skipped speaking at a news conference, citing \u201cmedical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Townsend, an American who is ranked No. 1 in doubles, and Ostapenko, a Latvian who won the 2017 French Open in singles, were back on court in separate doubles matches on Thursday. Townsend and her partner, Katerina Siniakova, won theirs; Ostapenko and Barbora Krejcikova, lost theirs.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, after Townsend\u2019s straight-set victory over Ostapenko in singles, they had an extended argument after shaking hands up at the net \u2014 and Townsend, who is Black, said Ostapenko called her \u201cuneducated\u201d while wagging a finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone and everyone that I\u2019ve spoken to who saw anything, they obviously said that it was disrespectful,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cEven the mannerisms of her hand pointing at my face like I\u2019m a child, and just the things that she was saying, everyone said that it was bad behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostapenko said afterward on social media that she was bothered by two things Townsend did: begin the warmup by volleying instead of hitting shots from the baseline \u2014 which might be unusual, but is something the American often does and is within the rules \u2014 and not apologizing after winning a point with help from the ball going off the net\u2019s tape. <\/p>\n

Townsend found those critiques \u201chypocritical,\u201d she said Thursday. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, she\u2019s not known to have sportsmanship and have the best code of conduct,\u201d Townsend said, \u201cso to try and call me out on something that you don\u2019t even do yourself is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the subject of Townsend-Ostapenko initially was raised at Naomi Osaka\u2019s news conference following her 6-3, 6-1 win<\/a> over Hailey Baptiste in the second round Thursday, the four-time Grand Slam champion said: \u201cI saw that part, obviously. It\u2019s been on the TV, like, every 15 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority white sport,\u201d said Osaka, whose father is from Haiti and mother is from Japan. \u201cAnd granted, I know Taylor, and I know how hard she\u2019s worked, and I know how smart she is, so she\u2019s the furthest thing from uneducated or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After winning her second-round match Thursday night, Coco Gauff described the episode as \u201ca heat-of-the-moment thing. I think Jelena was probably feeling emotions after she lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that that shouldn\u2019t have been said, regardless of how you\u2019re feeling. … Knowing Taylor personally, she\u2019s the opposite of that. She\u2019s one of the nicest people that I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cWhenever I\u2019ve had a tough moment on court, she\u2019s texting me, making sure, checking in on how I am. So I really hate to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Ostapenko, in particular, who has gotten into kerfuffles with opponents before, Osaka said: \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s the craziest thing she\u2019s said. I\u2019m going to be honest. I think it\u2019s ill timing and the worst person you could have ever said it to. And I don\u2019t know if (Ostapenko) knows the history of it in America. But I know she\u2019s never going to say that ever again in her life. … It was just terrible. Like, that\u2019s just really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Townsend was asked Wednesday whether she thought there were racial undertones to Ostapenko\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t take it in that way, but also, you know, that has been a stigma in our community of being \u2018not educated\u2019 and all of the things, when it\u2019s the furthest thing from the truth,\u201d Townsend responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo whether it had racial undertones or not, that\u2019s something she can speak on,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cThe only thing that I\u2019m worried about right now is continuing to move forward through this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back a day later, Townsend said she had received a lot of support. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I handled the situation very gracefully, and I\u2019m really proud of the way that I handled it,\u201d Townsend said Thursday. \u201cI didn\u2019t allow the situation to take me out of my character or to lose my integrity as a person, and that\u2019s what really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostapenko posted on social media Wednesday that she had received many messages \u201cthat I am a racist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was NEVER racist in my life and I respect all nations of people in the world. For me it doesn\u2019t matter where you come from,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The postmatch back-and-forth between Taylor Townsend and Jelena Ostapenko remained a topic of conversation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[9660,5113,23994,5630,5629,74827,20706,18323,2005,1999,3766,99,24842,428,31291],"class_list":["post-117770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-barbora-krejcikova","tag-coco-gauff","tag-hailey-baptiste","tag-il-state-wire","tag-illinois","tag-jelena-ostapenko","tag-katerina-siniakova","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-sports","tag-taylor-townsend","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}