Aryna Sabalenka destroys US Open reporter over ‘partying’ question
· Yahoo Sports
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Polina Latcenko in the second round of the U.S. Open on Wednesday. She was all business and there wasn’t a ton of drama.
Off the court there were more fireworks as she took issue with a reporter’s question.
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“How are you finding your mood now that the tournament has started? Obviously last week it’s lots of parties and fun and stuff like that,” the reporter asked her.
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“You guys are like a joke,” Sabalenka responded. “Parties. Fun. Why would you even say that? Why would you even think about that? Like, what kind of question is that? Just because I posted some activities with brands and you think that I’ve been partying?”
The reporter then made it clear he wasn’t accusing her of partying, instead pointing to her full calendar of events.
There was some back and forth before the reporter landed on a different way to phrase the question—one that Sabalenka didn’t really like either.
“Now that the tournaments started, do you find you’re getting quite serious and combative?” he said.
“Oh yeah, I wasn’t serious before that,” Sabalenka answered. “Next question. Think before you say stuff.”
No one likes the person who stands confidently on the middle ground and refuses to take a side. But this is a situation where you can see it from both angles.
Sabalenka is correct. It’s not a good question. It was awkward and caused things to get immediately sideways. One doesn’t get to be at the top of the sport by sidestepping the work for soirees and fun time. So that implication is not going to sit well.
At the same time, it’s entirely possible that the phrasing was just clunky here and no disrespect was meant. It’s also more than likely that better phrasing wouldn’t have revealed an answer that was interesting at all and at least this exchange was entertaining.
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