Jelena Ostapenko told her opponent Laura Siegemund to ‘learn how to lose’ after a heated row broke out over a rules controversy at Wimbledon.
Ostapenko and her partner Marcelo Arevalo punched their ticket into the Mixed Doubles semi-finals with a straight-set victory over Laura Siegemund and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
However, their victory was overshadowed by a heated post-match debate following a rules controversy in the closing stages of the second set tie-break.
Finely poised at 7-7, Siegemund was given a time violation by chair umpire Jonas Welte after taking too long with her first serve.
The German thereby forfeited her first serve, before going on to miss her second serve long and lose the point.
Both Siegemund and Roger-Vasselin immediately confronted the umpire to contest the decision, with Siegemund insisting that the umpire had failed to penalise opponent Ostapenko for similar infractions.
‘Every time in a big moment she throws 18 times the ball up, and that’s nothing, and one time I’m over the time and it’s a big point and you give me it [the time violation], it’s unbelievable,’ Siegemund said. ‘She did it and you did nothing.’
Ostapenko and Arevalo went on to win the match on the very next point, but tensions only rose as both teams approached the net.
Both female players declined to shake hands, although Ostapenko did shake hands with Roger-Vasselin as they exchanged more words.
Siegemund then headed back towards the chair umpire to protest his decision before appearing to storm off the court.
But Ostapenko was clearly keen to wade into the debate, saying to the German as she walked away: ‘Just take the loss a bit better, learn how to lose.’
The Latvian then continued to debate the ruling with Roger-Vasselin, adding: ‘It’s a very good rule and he (the umpire) did a great job.
‘Finally someone is not afraid to do that when she is taking like two minutes between the serves and before the serves. Everyone knows this.’
‘She was late a lot of times, you maybe didn’t look at the clock,’ Ostapenko added before saying that Siegemund’s behaviour was also ‘not very nice’.
Ostapenko and Arevalo play Christian Harrison and Shuai Zhang for a place in the Mixed Doubles final.
The Latvian previously reached the final with Robert Lindstedt in 2019 but suffered a straight-set defeat to Ivan Dodig and Latisha Chan.
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