“I just told her I didn’t respect her as a competitor,” Navarro said of the exchange, per AFP. “I think she goes about things in a pretty cut-throat way. It makes for a locker room that doesn’t have a lot of camaraderie, so it’s tough to face an opponent like that, who I really don’t respect.”

“She told me she doesn’t know how I have a lot of fans,” Zheng said. “It looks like she’s not happy with my behavior toward her. If she’s not happy about my behavior, she can come and tell me. I would like to correct it to become a better player and a better person.”

Zheng clarified that she wasn’t upset by Navarro’s words. “I’m glad that she told me that,” Zheng continued. “I will not consider it an attack because she lost the match.”

this is one of three times a US tennis player has acted like a sore loser in the past several days:

Danielle Collins scratches her match due to “injury” as she was losing. After her Polish opponent congratulated her on her career, Collins calls her “insincere” before walking away. She then played doubles 2 hours after her supposed injury.

Coco Guaff argues with chair umpire after losing to Croatia, says “this always happens to me” while crying. (i think some people are debating if her gripe was somewhat fair, but i feel like implying the judge is always out to get you is definintely doing too much. at least she didn’t disrespect her opponent 🤷)

    • mar_k [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      88·
      4 months ago

      lmao holy shit i though the comment in the video was like a joke or hyperbole 😭

      honestly i already just assumed most of the US team are nepo babies whose parents afford top of the line private training

      • Justice@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        201·
        4 months ago

        Well, it’s tennis, so yes

        But also generally yes for other sports

        It’s going to of course be incredibly rare for a teen or early 20 year old, the peak for a lot of these sports, to come from poverty and compete at the Olympics. It requires training from young childhood that parents in poverty simply cannot afford, proper nutrition to ensure the kid grows up as healthy and strong as possible, guaranteed free time especially as they hit later teens and 20s the ability to never need to work a job, and other stuff like buying the best and proper equipment, travel costs to compete, etc.

        Maybe someone should tell the hogs if they want to win all the gold medals they gotta provide the basic needs for every citizen and offer fully free, government sponsored training for the most athletic kids to get to the Olympic level.

        We tried to create a society of super elite athletes and, oops, we got communism! Oh no!