Paula Badosa accused certain fans of "bullying" her before deleting everything from her social media related to what some deemed as an insensitive joke.
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Earlier this month, the Spanish tennis star found herself on the receiving end of criticism after using chopsticks to pull her eyes in a selfie. The photo was posted by her technical coach Pol Toledo Bague and later deleted after the racism accusations. Later, the 26-year-old claimed her intention wasn't to be racist but admitted she should not have done it.
"Hey guys! Really sorry didnt know this was offensive towards racism. My mistake. I take full responsibility. This mistakes will make me learn for next time. Hope you understand. I love you all," Badosa said at the time.
Fast forward to this week, the former world No. 2 announced she would not play any WTA tournaments in the rest of the season but would represent Spain at next month's Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Malaga. After the current world No. 14 shared the news, coach Toledo issued another post, this time expressing his gratitude to Badosa
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"Thank you for not posting a picture that gets me in trouble this time," the four-time WTA champion wrote and added eye-roll and laughing emojis.
Badosa's reaction led to more scrutiny
Even after the Spanish tennis star apologized earlier this month, some didn't accept it and think that it was honest. And her reaction to Toledo's post was used as an argument by that particular group of people. However, that didn't make the 26-year-old happy at all, who took to X to address the fresh criticism.
"Who do you think you are to judge me without even knowing anything about me? I think this proves more the person you are than me. If you knew me a 1% you would know Im the kind of person that tries to find humor on negativity. Because people like you are bringing to much negativity on this world so I try to turn the situation around. Because all this bullying is insane and its ridiculous," Badosa wrote on X.
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"The story was finish when I came out and apologize and took the entire responsibility of it. Move on. Jesus. Its really tiring to see constantly hate and criticism on this social media. I had an issue, YES. But after that people and fans in China treated me amazing. Because they UNDERSTAND people can be wrong, recognize it and correct to be better next time and have another chance. But I still dont understand what is your point. You can constantly offend and bully people on social media and thats okay? This needs to STOP. Bye."
Badosa: I wasn't insensitive towards Asians, I was just joking with my coach
While the Spaniard didn't take a controversial photo this time or anything like this, some argued that just joking about the post from earlier this month was very insensitive from her side.
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"Dear Paula, it's not about you being a positive person but you joking about racism. I know you apologised but then you acted like a victim. There was no need to bring this history back but that's what you did. You wanted as to move on but you're keep joking about it," one person explained.
But Badosa had none of it, insisting that she was joking with her coach and suggesting that she couldn't understand why some had problems with it.
"Dear Dawid, Im not joking about anything. Im teasing my coach dont twist things. Do you see the difference? And the way you are texting me now is completely different on how you judge me and said how I was as a person in the beginning... Please just focus on being a fan and leave the rest alone. Thats what you should do," she explained.
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Badosa accusing fans of bullying her and defending herself didn't stop criticism. Instead, the backlash only probably got bigger. After some time, the former world No. 2 decided to remove all of the posts from X that were related to her argument with fans.
Meanwhile, after reaching the Beijing semifinal, the world No. 14 skipped Wuhan due to an illness. After taking a week off, she returned to action in Ningbo, where she made another semifinal. Unfortunately for the Spaniard, her promising run ended in a very unfortunate way after she was forced to retire mid-match to Daria Kasatkina.
Following a disappointing end to Ningbo, Badosa decided to put a curtain on her WTA season and focus on recovering from injuries and physical setbacks that have plagued her recently.
