If there are any prop bets on whether women’s tennis stars Maria Sakkari and Yulia Putintseva will exchange Christmas cards this year, you should bet against it.
A hard-fought battle during the Bad Homburg Open in Germany on Sunday turned into a heated exchange afterwards as Sakkari told Putintseva, “Nobody likes you.”
Sakkari took the victory 7-5, 7-6 (6) in her grass court matchup against Putinseva. Palpable friction existed between the two during the match, and those tensions reached a boiling point when, after shaking hands at the end, Putinseve refused to look Sakkari in the eye.
This prompted the Greek player to let Putinseva know, “Nobody likes you.”
The two then began arguing, an argument that culminated in a highly sarcastic curtsy.
The pair continued bickering even while shaking hands with the chair umpire. Sakkari told Putinseva she should have looked her in the eye like a “human being.” To which Putinseva responded, “I was a human being – look at yourself.”
Eventually, the chair umpire interjected and brought calm to the situation by saying, “Ladies, please.”
“I don’t think she’s going to invite me for dinner for the rest of our lives, but I don’t care,” Sakkari told a reporter afterward. “I have very good friends and I’ll go to dinner with them. Let me leave it here, and just say that I have respect for her as a player, but that’s it.”
For her part, Putinseva posted on Instagram, “By the way — not that I care — I shook her hand as most women do. Clearly not according to the ‘hugging protocol’ some men seem to follow.”