Tiafoe reflects on controversial 'clown' remark, believes it was misunderstood

America’s tennis star Frances Tiafoe believes that his comments about losing to ‘clowns’ was taken out of context. The 26-year-old was in hot waters last year after making a comment about calling his fellow players on the tour ‘clowns’ following series of poor results back then.

"Literally this week last year I was 10 in the world and now I’m barely seeded here, losing to clowns, I mean… I hate to say it, but I’m just gonna be honest with you guys," he said back then. The Maryland-born star was recently quoted in a report where he stated that in his opinion, his words were taken wrong.

Tiafoe stated that he has seen athletes playing different sports saying much meaner things than he did back then. "100%. I mean, I definitely like a bunch of team sports,” he said. “People were saying way worse things. I've seen Luka Doncic in the Playoffs cursing guys out. I mean, saying way worse things and it's not that serious. Yeah, I think it got taken the wrong way. At the same time, everyone on tour was laughing with me because it was me. I think it was all good fun in the end. I think people are going to hold their hat on that for a while.”

Tiafoe is not having a great season and is not part of Team USA, which is currently participating in the Paris Olympics. The current world number 29 is set to participate in the Citi Open, where he will go up against Daniel Elahi Galán in the opening round of the competition on Wednesday. It will be the first meeting between the two in professional tennis. This year, the defending champion, Dan Evans, is not participating in the competition as he is currently with Great Britain's team at the Paris Olympics. He lifted the title last year after beating Tallon Griekspoor in the final in straight sets with a score of 7-5, 6-3.