“I felt that way the whole match,” she recalled after reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “Even if I had won, I probably would have said the same thing.”
Earlier in press, Navarro, who was fresh off a straight-set victory over former world No. 2 Paula Badosa, intimated that she and Zheng shared history from their days on the junior circuit, where they played three times at big events: twice in 2018 at the Eddie Herr International Junior Championships and the Orange Bowl, and once in 2019 at Roland Garros.
“I don’t want to go super into the weeds with it,” she explained. “But I think during that match and, you know, on the practice court and the last few times I’ve played her…I felt just a little bit disrespected by her.
“You know, I don’t want to, like I said, go too into detail with it. But yeah, I think she didn’t necessarily treat me or the sport with respect. That’s why I said what I said after the match. But, yeah, that’s it.”
