Naomi Osaka has strongly criticised Jelena Ostapenko after the Latvian\u2019s post-match comments about American Taylor Townsend sparked controversy at the US Open. Ostapenko, who lost 7-5 6-1 to Townsend in the second round on Wednesday, accused her opponent of poor sportsmanship and claimed she had \u201cno education\u201d after a disagreement about a net cord point. The remarks quickly drew backlash across the tennis world.
Townsend, who dismissed any racial intent in Ostapenko\u2019s words, acknowledged that such stereotypes carry a troubling history. \u201cI didn\u2019t take it that way,\u201d she said, \u201cbut that has been a stigma in our community of being not educated, when it\u2019s the furthest thing from the truth.\u201d Ostapenko later denied any racist undertone in an Instagram statement, insisting her frustration was taken out of context.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka said the comments were unacceptable, calling them \u201cill-timed and the worst person you could have ever said it to.\u201d She added: \u201cI don\u2019t know if she 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. Taylor has worked so hard and is so smart\u2014she\u2019s the furthest thing from uneducated.\u201d
World number three Coco Gauff also weighed in, saying Ostapenko\u2019s choice of words was wrong regardless of intent. \u201cI think it was a heat of the moment thing. Jelena was probably feeling emotions after she lost,\u201d the 21-year-old said. \u201cThat shouldn\u2019t have been said, especially given the reasons she stated. Knowing Taylor personally, she\u2019s the opposite of that.\u201d Meanwhile, world number one Aryna Sabalenka revealed she spoke privately with Ostapenko to encourage her to \u201chandle things in a more mature way,\u201d admitting the Latvian can sometimes \u201close control.\u201d
Ostapenko, a former French Open champion, withdrew from her media duties after losing in the women\u2019s doubles on Thursday, with organisers citing illness. The incident has overshadowed her US Open campaign and raised questions over her temperament. As criticism continues from fellow players, many in the sport hope the 27-year-old will reflect and learn from the episode, with Osaka stressing it should serve as a lesson about words that carry damaging weight in tennis and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Naomi Osaka has strongly criticised Jelena Ostapenko after the Latvian\u2019s post-match comments about American Taylor Townsend sparked controversy at the US Open. Ostapenko, who lost 7-5 6-1 to Townsend in the second round on Wednesday, accused her opponent of poor sportsmanship and claimed she had \u201cno education\u201d after a disagreement about a net cord point. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/images-18-4.jpeg?fit=679%2C452&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17627,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17626\/revisions\/17627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}