Sloane Stephens feuds with Russian player at China Open

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Sloane Stephens feuded with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia during the first round of the China Open on Sunday. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

Liz Roscher Staff writer

Mon, Oct 1, 2018

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Tennis season is almost over, but players are still in top feuding form. This time, American Sloane Stephens and Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova went at it in the first round of the China Open on Sunday, which ended with Stephens accusing Pavlyuchenkova of trying to hit her during a volley.

It began with Pavlyuchenkova. She was down 2-5 in the second set when she called for the trainer to look at her shoulder. That's not abnormal on its own, but the timing bothered Stephens. She had just won a break point, and she was due to serve. It seemed like the timeout wasn't just to check Pavlyuchenkova's shoulder, but to break Stephens' momentum.

Stephens did win the second set, but she was still pretty ticked off at Pavlyuchenkova for calling that timeout. After the second set ended, Stephens approached Pavlyuchenkova at the net and started questioning her about the general sportsmanship of calling for a trainer at that moment.

"What's disrespectful? You called the physio at 5-2. You're not even injured … Don't be ridiculous."

Umpire Jenny Zhang had to climb down off her chair and put herself between the two players to stop them from getting closer, but Stephens and Pavlyuchenkova continued jawing at each other and the umpire.

The confrontation between rounds eventually ended, but it continued on the court in the third set. Stephens was up 3-0, and it looked like Pavlyuchenkova tried to hit Stephens with a late overhead smash during a volley.

Stephens knew what had happened, and you can see her say "f—–g b—h tried to hit me" once she won the point. Yikes.

We may not see Stephens and Pavlyuchenkova play each other again in 2018, but get ready for 2019, because we definitely haven't seen the last of this beef.

H/T: Deadspin

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Liz Roscher is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter at @lizroscher .

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