Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko has hit back at claims she took a medical time out to deliberately disrupt the momentum of her third round match at Wimbledon.
The former French Open champion exchanged a war of words with Ajla Tomljanovic, whom she later described as the ‘worst on the Tour,’ during what was a tense encounter on Court 15. During the final set Ostapenko was trailing 0-4 before calling for a medical time out for an abdominal injury. She was heard saying to the match official “I cannot continue. I have pain.”
However, Tomljanovic swiftly questioned the honesty of her opponent who at the time was on a seven-game losing streak. The Australian said to the umpire ‘You know she’s lying, right? We all know.’ In total the match was stopped for 11 minutes whilst Ostapenko received treatment. Tomljanovic went on to win the match 4-6, 6-6, 6-2, which was immediately followed by an argument between the two players on the court.
Speaking about the incident during her press conference, Ostapenko accused her rival of being disrespectful and said she pulled something in her abdomen during the second set. She went on to claim she would have beaten Tomljanovic if she had been just 50% fit.
“It’s very, very disrespectful from her side because she knows zero about what I had, my injury and everything,” she said.
“I think my level was not good after the first set because if I played at least 50% I would have beaten her.”
Meanwhile, Tomljanovic is standing by her claim before going on to say there is a problem on the women’s Tour with players taking a medical timeout when they don’t need to. On the offensive she said Ostapenko demonstrated ‘disgraceful behaviour’ and described the accusations made against her as ‘laughable.’
“I have been in situations where players use that medical timeout to get their opponent off, usually when they are losing badly and the match is getting closer to the end,” Tomljanovic told reporters. “She can say she was injured. I don’t think she was. There was nothing wrong with her the whole match, but then why on 4-0 she calls it (for a trainer)?’
“There definitely should be a rule where we prevent that from happening because it happens way too much in the women’s game.”
Tomljanovic will play British wildcard Emma Raducan in the fourth round on Monday.
