“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 🤷)

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Maybe something has changed, but if it’s anything I think it’s just the fact that it is now easier to push back against the propaganda of the west, or people have gotten better at it.

      “The USSR women are so roided up they’ve become men” was a common accusation back when the soviet union still existed. That and stereotypes of children being driven like cattle and grown in vats, as if the US is any better

    • mar_k [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      2 months ago

      no idea, i imagine it’s not really something western mainstream media would report much on, i only found out because i’m following that chinese netizen tiktoker

      i wouldn’t have even known there were two more examples if i didn’t lose the video and try to find it again by searching “american tennis player sore loser” just for three different cases from the past week to pop up lmfao

    • Barabas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      I think we’ve been reaching a fever pitch for far right nationalist movements in a lot of the “west” fairly quick over the last couple of years, notable that the big whiners all have a openly anti-immigrant nationalist party either in power or as the opposition.

      Consider that there are two boxers in the Olympics that were banned by the IBA, but only the one that knocked out the Italian one is a news story.