Yulia Putintseva insists she “didn’t do anything disrespectful to anyone” during her controversial interaction with a ball girl at the US Open, although she has apologised to the ball girl in question.
The Kazakh player came under fire after she appeared to ignore the ball girl during her 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Jasmine Paoline in the third round.
After asking for the ball girl to throw her balls, she allowed the balls to bounce to fall to the ground without reacting.
Several high-profile people in the tennis community hit out at Putintseva with Boris Becker describing her behaviour as “terrible” while Rennae Stubbs, a former doubles world No 1, said it was “typical” of Putintseva.
Putintseva initially posted an apology on Instagram over the weekend before deleting it, but she has now put out a statement about the incident to give her side of the story as she explained she was deep in thought.
“It’s kind of scary the way [the] world can judge someone from just a 3 second video, that someone posts from one side, without seeing the rest on what was really happening,” she wrote.
US Open News
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“I was just playing tennis and lost a tough game, which was very close (in my opinion) to turn that match around. After the game (as you can see on a pic) I got very much disappointed and was almost crying, that I didn’t do better. At this time the girl was give me the ball, which I didn’t even notice or so, because I was deep in my thoughts…
“I was not trying to humiliate her( or anyone ) by not taking this ball that she was given to me.
“I didn’t do anything disrespectful to anyone at this particular moment. I do apologize, if this girl thinks that it was something towards her. (And btw her name is Kate, very nice girl, which understood that it was nothing towards her).
“I can’t say, that I am perfect all my career. I am getting angry on court, pissed, saying stupid stuff and curse like no tomorrow sometimes Guilty for that. But I did never put myself “on top” of someone. That’s just not me at all.”
Yulia Putintseva on Instagram
Yulia Putintseva statement on Instagram
The 29-year-old also plans to do “something special” for the ball girl.
She added: “Hope you guys can see it now from the different angle now. I mean , I know that haters gonna hate and this message is getting way to long, so I am going to stop right here
“And last thing , since Kate is already involved in this mess, I am trying to make something special for her”