Paula Badosa in racism storm after ‘imitating Asian people’ in chopsticks photo

Paula Badosa and her coach were out for dinner in Beijing when the picture was taken. Photo / Instagram

The former world No 2 tennis player Paula Badosa has apologised after a photo emerged of her appearing to imitate a Chinese face in Beijing last week.

The image, which was posted on Instagram by her coach Pol Toledo, showed Badosa in a restaurant holding chopsticks up to her eyes and squinting.

When Badosa was accused of racism by other Instagram users, she initially insisted that she hadn’t been “imitating Asian people”, but was instead “playing with my face and wrinkles. I love Asia and I have many Asian friends”.

She then posted an apology on X which read: “Really sorry didn’t know this was offensive towards racism. My mistake. I take full responsibility. This mistakes [sic] will make me learn for next time.”

That message appeared on Monday, and on Tuesday morning Badosa – who is now the world No 15 – withdrew from this week’s event in Wuhan citing gastroenteritis.

She remains in the field for the Ningbo Open next week, although there are concerns that these sorts of social-media indiscretions can cause issues with the Chinese authorities.

In the build-up to a 2017 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in Shanghai, the model Gigi Hadid had her visa request rejected shortly after she had appeared in a social-media video where she held up a Buddha-shaped biscuit and squinted her eyes.

Badosa reached the semi-finals of the Beijing Open before losing to eventual champion Coco Gauff. She has been on a strong run of form, winning 18 of her last 22 matches to carry herself back into the top 20. Earlier this season, she admitted that doctors had told her to stop playing last year because of a persistent back injury.

Meanwhile, British No1 Katie Boulter lost her first-round match in Wuhan, where she was playing Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko. Boulter’s serve came under heavy pressure as she was broken six times in 10 games, and this proved to be the decisive factor in her 6-2, 7-5 defeat.

We also saw the beginnings of an on-court apology from Magda Linette, the world 45 from Poland, before she was cut off by her interviewer in Wuhan.

This was another social media controversy, which had begun when Linette posted a photograph of her train to Wuhan on X. She then added a caption in Polish which said: “The virus database has been updated.” She was presumably referring to coronavirus, which first surfaced in the Wuhan area in 2019.

Linette’s tweet appeared to have irritated some of the fans who attended her match against Liudmila Samsonova on Tuesday, as there were reports of people shouting out. But she still closed out a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Samsonova, and then began her on-court interview by saying “I know I offended some of you guys so I …”

At this point, the interviewer snatched the microphone back and said: “Okay, talk about your performance.” Linette added “Thank you so much for being so nice to me,” before leaving the court, but her interrupted apology was not passed on to non-English-speaking fans.

Switching to Chinese, the interviewer said: “She said ‘Thank you’. That’s all from us today. The game is over.”