Sports News | Coco Gauff Says Criticism of Aryna Sabalenka”s French Open Comments Went ”too Far”

Sports News | Coco Gauff Says Criticism of Aryna Sabalenka''s French Open Comments Went ''too Far''

London, Jun 29 (AP) It didn’t take long for Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka to patch up their relationship after this month’s French Open final. Now as Wimbledon is about to start, Gauff is hoping everyone else can also forget what the top-ranked Sabalenka said in the wake of her loss to the American at Roland-Garros. Also Read | ZIM vs SA 1st Test 2025: Lhuan-Dre Pretorius, Corbin Bosch Score Maiden Tons As South Africa Reach 418/9 Against Zimbabwe at Stumps on Day 1. A day after dancing together on Wimbledon’s Centre Court in a TikTok video, the two tennis players faced more questions on Saturday about the aftermath of Sabalenka’s comments right after the final, when she said her loss had more to do with her own mistakes than Gauff’s performance. The Belarusian later wrote to apologize to Gauff and said her comments were 鈥渦nprofessional,鈥 but not before she faced some major backlash from fans and pundits 鈥 especially in the United States. Also Read | Smriti Mandhana Becomes First Indian Woman To Score Tons Across All Formats, Achieves Feat During IND-W vs ENG-W 1st T20I 2025. Gauff is trying to make sure the criticism stops. 鈥淚’m not the person that will fuel hate in the world,鈥 said Gauff, who opens her Wimbledon campaign against Dayana Yastremska on Tuesday. 鈥淚 think people were taking it too far. 鈥 It was just really targeting and saying a lot of things that I felt were not nice. I didn’t want to fuel that more.鈥 Sabalenka, who faces Carson Branstine on No. 1 Court on Monday, said she hopes the TikTok video shows that all is well between the two. 鈥淲e are good, we are friends,鈥 the three-time major winner said. 鈥淚 hope the U.S. media can be easy on me right now.鈥 Sabalenka reiterated that she never meant to offend Gauff. 鈥淚 was just completely upset with myself, and emotions got over me,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 just completely lost it.鈥 Gauff did acknowledge that she was initially tempted to hit back publicly at Sabalenka, who said the American 鈥渨on the match not because she played incredible; just because I made all of those mistakes from … easy balls.鈥 Gauff also said she was slightly surprised that it took a while for Sabalenka to reach out to apologize. But once that happened, the American was quick to bury any grudge. 鈥淚 preach love, I preach light,鈥 Gauff said. 鈥淚 just want us to be Kumbaya, live happily, hakuna matata, and be happy here.鈥 Other players were also pleased to see the top two women’s players getting along again. 鈥淚’m happy to see that they turned the page about it,鈥 said Frances Tiafoe, who is seeded 12th in the Wimbeldon men’s bracket. 鈥淭hat’s the biggest thing, because they’re the best players in the world. So those relationships you kind of need.鈥 Then the American added with a laugh: 鈥淏ut also it wouldn’t be too bad if they were also back-and-forth. That’d kind of be cool if they kind of didn’t like each other.鈥 (AP) AM (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

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