Lorenzo Musetti has become the newest tennis star to apologize from Chinese fans.
Musetti was irritated by coughing in the crowd during his round-32 victory on Friday against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the China Open in Beijing. He saw a person think after a point after a point in Italian: “They cough every three seconds.” Local media also accused him of ‘damn Chinese’.
“I would like to apologize for what I said in frustration yesterday during my game,” Musetti wrote on Instagram. “My words were only aimed at a few individuals in the crowd who repeatedly coughed and disrupted the piece. They were in no way meant for the Chinese people. It happened in a moment of stress and tension in the second tiebreak, but this is no excuse at all.
“I realize that the way I expressed myself was wrong and inappropriate, and it hurt the feelings of many Chinese fans.”
The eruption of Musetti led to a flurry of indignation on social media, in which people commented on one of his previous Instagram posts to accuse him that he is a racist, along with insults and blemish against Italian culture.
The American tennis star Taylor Townsend apologized on 17 September to make contemporary comments about Chinese food before the United States played Kazakhstan on the Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen, China.
Townsend had posted videos from local dishes, including bullfrogs and turtles and joked that she should “talk to HR” about the quality of the food. She went to Instagram again to apologize after being confronted with a recoil online and said, “Everyone has been so friendly and so friendly.”
The Associated Press has contributed to this report.
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