Tennis icon Jimmy Connors has come to the defence of Aryna Sabalenka after the world No 1 faced criticism for comments she made after the French Open final.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka<\/a> was beaten 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 by Coco Gauff in the Roland Garros final on Saturday, a second straight major final defeat after losing to Madison Keys at the Australian Open back in January.<\/p>\n The three-time Grand Slam champion was visibly upset when delivering her runner-up speech inside Court Philippe Chatrier, and did not hide her frustration about her performance.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, guys [the crowd], this one hurts so much, especially after such a tough two weeks, playing great tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n \u201cTo show such terrible tennis in the final really hurts. Anyway, congrats Coco, you were a better player than me.<\/p>\n \u201cWell done on a great two weeks and a second Grand Slam, well deserved, You are a fighter and a hard worker, so congrats to you and your team.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka doubled down on her assessment of the match in her press conference shortly afterwards, claiming that she had handed Gauff too many unforced errors.<\/p>\n The Belarusian also controversially claimed that Iga Swiatek, whom she had beaten in the semi-final, would have likely beaten Gauff in the final.<\/p>\n Sabalenka has clarified her comments in recent days, congratulating Gauff in an Instagram story and claiming that she did not mean to disrespect the world No 2.<\/p>\n While she has faced criticism from the likes of Chris Evert, she has also faced criticism from outside the tennis world, with a strong reaction to her comments on social media.<\/p>\n Exclusive:\u00a0Katie Boulter makes an Alex de Minaur confession as she sets a huge tennis target<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018Proud\u2019 Corey Gauff reveals where he watched daughter Coco\u2019s French Open triumph<\/a><\/p>\n However, she has now found a welcome form of defence in the form of Connors<\/a>, who finished as the runner-up at seven Grand Slam tournaments across his career.<\/p>\n Speaking on his podcast Advantage Connors<\/em>, the eight-time champion claimed most of Sabalenka\u2019s critics \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d what is going through her or any player\u2019s head after such a defeat.<\/p>\n The US icon also suggested that players should be given more time after matches before giving speeches or press conferences.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cAfter a tough match, whether it\u2019s the finals or the French or Wimbledon or whatever, everyone wants to hear your thoughts right away.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it would be better to give you five minutes and let the players take a breath \u2013 but they want to hear it right away, they want the scoop. And then they are critical of it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s always been a crawl in my whatever. These guys think they know what they are talking about when they have not done it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can sit there and say I have saw this and I have watched so much tennis I know what\u2019s in your mind. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s in my mind! You have no clue.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd, by the way, not every player has the same thing going through their mind, everybody is an individual. So let the players take a breath sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka is currently set to return to action at the Berlin Open next week, where she will look to get valuable grass-court matches under her belt ahead of Wimbledon.<\/p>\n Wimbledon is now the only Slam where the Belarusian has not reached the final, having twice been beaten in semi-final matches at the All England Club.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0The ranking points Sabalenka, Gauff, Swiatek, Raducanu and top WTA stars are defending on grass<\/a><\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s controversial French Open comments defended by former world No 1<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennis icon Jimmy Connors has come to the defence of Aryna Sabalenka after the world No 1 faced criticism for comments she made after the French Open final. Sabalenka was beaten 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 by Coco Gauff in the Roland Garros final on Saturday, a second straight major final defeat after losing to Madison Keys […]<\/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-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","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=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n