Naomi Osaka and Sorana Cirstea both climbed down from the contentious end to their Australian Open match when speaking in their post-match press conferences.<\/p>\n
Two-time Australian Open champion and 16th seed Osaka<\/a> battled past tour veteran Cirstea<\/a> in a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory inside the Margaret Court Arena on Thursday, though it was the ending of their match that attracted the most attention<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cirstea appeared to complain to the umpire when serving at 4-2 down in the third set that Osaka was saying \u201ccome on\u201d in between the Romanian\u2019s first and second serves, with the Japanese ultimately breaking in that game before successfully serving out the match.<\/p>\n The pair then exchanged a frosty handshake, followed by a tense but brief conversation.<\/p>\n Osaka appeared visibly frustrated during her on-court interview and appeared to take a mild dig at her \u201cangry\u201d opponent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Defeat marked the end of Cirstea\u2019s 18th and final Australian Open appearance, with the 35-year-old set to retire from tennis later this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, when asked about the tense exchange in her post-match press conference, the world No 41 attempted to diffuse the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, all good, we just had a chat. Nothing big,\u201d said Cirstea.<\/p>\n \u201cAgain, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the main thing after tonight\u2019s match. It was a good match, she was much better than me towards the end, she deserved the win. That\u2019s all I will say.\u201d<\/p>\n Stan Wawrinka breaks stunning Grand Slam record with epic Australian Open victory<\/a><\/p>\n Stunning Alex Eala statistics suggest she is more popular than Alcaraz, Sinner and Djokovic<\/a><\/p>\n Asked further about the incident in a later question, the Romanian again refused to take the issue any further.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cI will not talk about that. This is my last Australian Open, I\u2019ve been playing for 20 years, and I think there\u2019s a bit more going on than just a five-second discussion at the end that I\u2019ve had with Naomi.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was my last Australian Open, so, yeah, I think the emotions are bigger for me right now than to talk about a five-second chat I had with Naomi at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Victory saw Osaka progress to the third round of the Australian Open for the second straight year, and she will now look to reach the second week of the tournament for the first time since 2021 \u2014 when she won the second of her two titles in Melbourne.<\/p>\n And, when asked about her perspective on the incident in her own press conference, the former world No 1 was also keen to move on from the exchange \u2014 while also offering Cirstea an apology.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cIf I\u2019m being honest, I\u2019ve never been involved in something like this before. So it\u2019s like, I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re supposed to leave it on the court and be like: \u2018Hey, how you doing?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a little confused, but like I get that emotions were very high for her, and I also want to apologise. I think the first couple things I said on the court was [sic] disrespectful, and I don\u2019t like disrespecting people. That\u2019s not what I do.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, yeah, I mean, if she wants to talk about it, then yeah, but when I\u2019m pumping myself up, in my head, I\u2019m not like: \u2018Okay, and now I\u2019m gonna distract the other person.\u2019 It\u2019s purely for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Osaka will return to court on Saturday to face qualifier Maddison Inglis, and could potentially face second seed Iga Swiatek in the round of 16.<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites<\/a> list for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Emma Raducanu\u2019s latest comments hint at another big change \u2013 could it be the end of another coach?<\/a><\/p>\n The post Naomi Osaka apologises for \u2018disrespectful\u2019 comment as she and Sorana Cirstea clarify Australian Open clash<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Naomi Osaka and Sorana Cirstea both climbed down from the contentious end to their Australian Open match when speaking in their post-match press conferences. Two-time Australian Open champion and 16th seed Osaka battled past tour veteran Cirstea in a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory inside the Margaret Court Arena on Thursday, though it was the ending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n