Britain’s Harriet Dart has apologized for saying her opponent, France’s Lois Boisson, “smells really bad” during her comprehensive defeat at the Rouen Open on Tuesday.
Dart, who lost 6-0, 6-3, was captured on the broadcast asking the umpire to tell Boisson to use deodorant, during a second-set changeover.
“Can you ask her to put on deodorant? She smells really bad,” Dart was heard saying to the official as she struggled against the 21-year-old Frenchwoman in the first round.
Photo: AP
The comment sparked an immediate backlash on social media, prompting Dart to address the incident on Instagram.
“It was a comment made in the heat of the moment and I truly regret it. It’s not the way I want to behave and I take full responsibility,” Dart wrote. “I have a lot of respect for Lois and the way she competed today. I’ll learn from this and move on.”
Boisson, who was already out on court while Dart was still seated, appeared to be out of earshot when the Briton made her remark.
Boisson gave a light-hearted response. She posted a photograph on Instagram of her on court with a Dove deodorant edited into the frame above her hand, tagging the company and writing that they “apparently need a collab.”
The victory marked a stunning upset for the 303rd-ranked Boisson, making her first WTA Tour appearance of the season following injury, against the 62nd-ranked Dart, who failed to convert any of her six break points and dropped her serve four times.
Meanwhile, at the Stuttgart Open, third seeds Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia lost their opening women’s doubles match 6-2, 3-6, 10-5 to Hungary’s Timea Babos and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with AP
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
RSS