Taylor Townsend saw her second-round win at the US Open over Jelena Ostapenko end in fireworks, but not the celebratory kind.
A handshake quickly spiralled into one of the most heated post-match confrontations of the US Open so far.
The row erupted after Ostapenko demanded an apology for a shot that clipped the net cord and landed in. Townsend refused, bluntly telling her opponent, “No, I don’t have to say sorry.”
As boos rang around Arthur Ashe Stadium, Ostapenko jabbed her finger at Townsend and escalated with, “You have no education,” a phrase she repeated three times.
Townsend gave as good as she got, firing back with, “Take the L,” before turning to hype up the crowd.
In her post-match interview she played down the moment, suggesting that frustration had boiled over on the other side. “People get upset when they lose. Some people say bad things,” she told ESPN.
But she made clear she would not be spoken down to. “If I show respect to you, I expect respect as well. That’s just the fact of the matter,” Townsend said.
Ostapenko’s brutal message
She also claimed Ostapenko had told her she had “no class” and warned her to “see what happens when we get outside the U.S.”
Ostapenko later doubled down online, calling Townsend “very disrespectful” for refusing to apologise. “There are some rules of tennis which most of the players follow,” she posted on Instagram.
“If she plays in her homeland, it doesn’t mean that she can behave and do whatever she wants.” She also complained about Townsend’s choice to warm up at the net, branding it “against the rules of tennis.”
Townsend dismissed those complaints in her press conference, saying she had always started matches by volleying. “This isn’t the first, second, third, fourth time I’ve played Jelena, so if she’s complaining about how I warm up, that’s fine,” she said.
The dispute even prompted accusations of racial undertones, which Townsend declined to weigh in on. Ostapenko, however, rejected the idea in a follow-up post, writing, “I was NEVER racist in my life and I respect all nations of people.”
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