Sabalenka apologizes to Gauff for post-match comments after French Open

The Associated Press

· Posted: Jun 17, 2025 12:53 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 minutes ago

Aryna Sabalenka says she has written to Coco Gauff to apologize for the "unprofessional" comments she made pursuing her nonaccomplishment to her American rival successful the last of the French Open.

Speaking to Eurosport Germany, the top-ranked Sabalenka said her remarks aft her 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 nonaccomplishment to Gauff astatine Roland-Garros this period were a mistake. In her post-match property league successful Paris, Sabalenka had suggested that the effect was much owed to her ain errors than to Gauff's performance.

"That was conscionable wholly unprofessional of me," Sabalenka said. "I fto my emotions get the amended of me. I perfectly regret what I said backmost then. You know, we each marque mistakes. I'm conscionable a quality being who's inactive learning successful life. I deliberation we each person those days erstwhile we suffer control. But what I besides privation to accidental is that I wrote to Coco afterward — not immediately, but recently."

Sabalenka deed 37 winners but finished the last with 70 unforced errors — compared to Gauff's 30.

She said she wrote to Gauff to apologize and "make definite she knew she perfectly deserved to triumph the tourney and that I respect her."

"I ne'er intended to onslaught her," Sabalanka added. "I was ace affectional and not precise astute astatine that property conference. I'm not needfully grateful for what I did. It took maine a portion to spell backmost and deliberation astir it, to attack it with unfastened eyes, and to understand. I realized a batch astir myself. Why did I suffer truthful galore finals?"

Sabalenka, a three-time large champion, besides mislaid to Gauff successful the 2023 U.S. Open final, wherever she besides won the archetypal set.

"I kept getting truthful emotional," Sabalenka added. "So I learned a lot. Above all, 1 thing: I'm the 1 who ever treats my opponents with large respect, whether I triumph oregon lose. Without that respect, I wouldn't beryllium wherever I americium today. So it was a pugnacious but precise invaluable acquisition for me."