Caroline Wozniacki hit out at sports journalist Jon Wertheim after the latter published fake quotes from her regarding the
Simona Halep doping case.
Wozniacki's former colleague Halep was hit with a four-year suspension earlier this month due to anti-doping violations. The former World No. 1 tested positive for the banned substance roxadustat last year and had been provisionally suspended since October 2022.
In the aftermath of the verdict, many big names in the tennis world voiced their opinions on the news - including Serena Williams, Patrick Mouratoglou, Darren Cahill, and Sorana Cirstea. However, one journalist attributed a quote to the 2018 Australian Open champion Wozniacki that was actually from a fake account.
Wozniacki angered by fake quotes
Wertheim originally shared a quote, seemingly from Wozniacki's social media, that defended Halep and said that her career should not be destroyed because of a contamination. However, the former World No. 1 quickly came forward to make it clear that these were not her words, but that they came from a fan account pretending to be her.
"It’s come to my attention that @jon_wertheim posted, and since deleted, quotes and opinions from me about Martina Hingis and the Halep doping case. To be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR those quotes were NOT from me, but instead were taken from an account on Instagram that pretended to be me, and didn’t have the check mark.
"This is very frustrating because it could have been easily avoided by either calling me, or checking the accounts authenticity on Instagram. I understand mistakes can happen, but I just want to be absolutely clear that these comments did NOT come from me. Have a great day," she wrote.
Wertheim has deleted the original quote and took to social media to re-iterate that it was misattributed to Wozniacki.
"To retierate - The quotes attributed yesterday to @CaroWozniacki came from either a hacked account or an impersonator account… The story has been corrected to reflect this," he wrote.
Wozniacki then responded to the post to express her frustration over what she suggested was Wertheim's lack of research in this instance.
"This was NOT a hacked account. You simply did not do your research to see it was a fake account with no verified check mark on it! Very simple to see on Instagram!" she continued.