Previously, Paula Badosa, along with her boyfriend, Stefanos Tsitsipas, received a lot of praise from the fans for embracing Chinese culture and traditions. For example, shortly after she arrived in Beijing, Badosa shared a post on her IG account captioned, “Ni hao“. It means ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ in Chinese. Tsitsipas was also spotted writing his Chinese nickname (7784) on the camera lens in the Chinese style after his R1 victory against Kei Nishikori. However, recently Badosa got embroiled in a scandal. She attempted to perhaps imitate Chinese people by posing with chopsticks. This picture raised some controversy among the fans. Now the Spaniard has come up with a clarification.

What’s all the fuss about, though? Well, it all started with an IG post by her physical trainer, Pol Toledo. He shared a few glimpses of their memorable moments from their trip to Beijing. In that post, there were several photos, which photo raised all these controversies exactly? According to some fans, a photo in that series had Paula Badosa using chopsticks to pull her eyelids back. This earned the ire of fans who accused her of racism towards Asians. The situation only escalated from there. As a result, Pol Toledo had to delete the picture from that post.

However, the damage was already done! Paula Badosa now had to step in to clarify the whole scenario. She responded to the accusations of mocking the Asian people with her controversial gesture through a comment on that post.

Badosa wrote, “Oh no please don’t get it that way. Never thought it would get interpreted this way we weren’t even imitating Asian people. I was playing around with my face and wrinkles. I love Asia one of my favorite people and have plenty of Asian friends. They are the kindest.“

Talking about having Asian friends on the Tour, we saw her share a heartfelt message to Zhang Shuai after defeating her in the QF of the China Open. Paula Badosa said, “She’s amazing as a person, you can see the level today also. I’m really happy for her because I know she went through very tough times but it shows how much of a fighter she is. She’s great, her team is great, she’s always with a smile, even supporting me during the tour so it’s great to have a tennis player like her.” Does this justify her claim of loving Asian people and her friends from this part of the world?

Well, we will let you decide this answer. However, this isn’t the first time that Badosa has been facing the backlash on social media. How much do these things affect her in her life?

“I’ve gotten used to it” – Paula Badosa speaks up on facing criticism from the fans on social media

Social media is a powerful tool. It can help you gain popularity within a few minutes and can bring down your reputation within seconds. Paula Badosa is a player who has faced quite a few criticisms and negative comments in the past because of her frequent injury issues. However, this time, Badosa faced backlash from the fans for a completely different issue. We don’t know whether she did that gesture knowingly or unknowingly, but at times some negative comments tend to play in your mind for a long time. This can in fact hamper one’s performance and mental peace.

How does Paula Badosa look at all these things? In June, Badosa shared some of her thoughts on this topic. According to her, “It’s now something that continues to happen to me and happens more and more. Now on social media, they don’t just write to me about my work but also about things about my private and personal life, fortunately, it doesn’t affect me much, I’ve gotten used to it even though I have experienced very hard moments in the past“

She added, “In general I can say that they write to me about everything, I am very exposed both on a personal and professional level.” Badosa explained that social media is something that is not under her control. So people can assume whatever they want and write what they feel like. Her sole aim now is to work hard to reach her goals. Moreover, she doesn’t want to pay heed to those negativities. Do you think fans misunderstood Paula Badosa in the recent incident?