Young Hungarian tennis player Amarissa Toth has apologised to Shuai Zhang after the incident in the opening round in Budapest.
The incident happened during their opening round contest where Zhang hit a forehand that was clearly in but was called out by the umpire despite the umpire checking the mark.
This saw Zhang fuming with the crowd booing her and Toth smiling and laughing at Zhang.
This caused the world number 28 to retire as she cried with Toth seemingly celebrating the win.
After the incident there was anger from much of the tennis community with the likes of Ons Jabeur, Daria Saville and Martina Navratilova criticising Toth’s behaviour.
Initially Toth defended her actions immediately after the match as she saw nothing wrong with her behaviour.
However in a video on social media Toth has now doubled down and offered an apology, “I did not think that my first ever WTA main draw success of my career would cause such a storm,” Toth was quoted as saying.
“I am extremely sorry for what happened, I respect Zhang Shuai as a player and as a person. It was never my intention to disrespect, hurt or upset anybody. I was acting in the heat of the match and got caught up by my emotions and the moment. I focused on tennis, I didn’t want to win like that.
“I hope that in the future I have the opportunity to sit down and talk with Zhang and tell her how badly I feel that our match ended this way.”
Toth will hope that she has learned her lesson as she would have made a lot of enemies in the locker room since then.
The Hungarian’s run came to an end in the last 16 having lost in straight sets to Kateryna Baindl.
