Sports

Beef at Wimbledon: Your dad keeps coughing during my serve

Less than a month after turning women’s tennis upside down with an audacious run to the French Open title, Jelena Ostapenko is at it again on the lawns of Wimbledon.

Ostapenko beat Italy’s Camila Giorgi, 7-5, 7-5, on Friday in the third round, putting the feisty 20-year-old just four wins away from completing what would be an astonishing French Open/Wimbledon double.

That would put her in the same company as Serena Williams and Steffi Graf, the only two players to achieve one of the toughest tasks in tennis in the last 20 years.

Ostapenko lost her cool at times and scowled across to Giorgi’s box. She later blasted Giorgi’s father, Sergio, accusing him of deliberately coughing at vital moments when she tried to serve.





“It was just before my serve, somebody started to cough. I think it’s a little bit unsportsmanlike. You’re in such a high level tournament like Wimbledon, a Grand Slam, I think people have to understand where they are,” Ostapenko said, via Agence France-Presse.

She complained to the chair umpire about noises coming from Giorgi’s player box during her service action.

“I think it was from her dad actually,” Ostapenko said. “They’re very close to tennis. They have to understand how to behave during the points or before the serve.

“I told the chair umpire and she kept an eye on it. A couple of times they were shouting before my serve. That’s why I got a bit disappointed.”

With Reuters





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