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Team USA women’s tennis star Emma Navarro lost her round of 16 match at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris to China’s Qinwen Zheng.
Navarro won the first set and led the second set 5-3 with match point at one point before storming back. It was the second big loss of the day for the American women after Coco Gauff went crashing out to Croatia’s Donna Vekic.
Emma Navarro Takes Shot At Chinese Player After Olympics Loss
After the match, Navarro made matters even worse for herself when she used the opportunity to take a shot at Zheng.
“I just told her I didn’t respect her as a competitor,” Navarro said of an exchange between the two after the match ended. “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.
“But, kudos to her, she played some good tennis there at the end. She played better than me, so congrats to her.”
It would be a pretty bad look for the 23-year-old New York native even if she had won. But it looks even worse having just been bounced out of the tournament.
After all, we don’t imagine Zheng will be too concerned with her popularity should she go on to win an Olympic medal.
Asked about Navarro’s comments, Zheng seemed to take them in stride.
“She told me she doesn’t know how I have a lot of fans. It looks like she’s not happy with my behavior towards her,” Zheng said. “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. I’m glad that she told me that. I will not consider it an attack because she lost the match.”
Zheng comes off not only as the winner on the court, but also looking far classier off of it.