COLUMN: Jelena Ostapenko crosses the line in New York

Here’s the thing about tennis etiquette: it’s not the Magna Carta. There’s no line in the rulebook requiring you to murmur “sorry” after a net-cord dribbler, and there’s no sportsmanship police writing tickets for warming up near the service line. What is in the rulebook—and what the sport actually has to enforce—is the simple idea that you can’t verbally abuse your opponent.

That’s why Jelena Ostapenko’s post-match tirade at Taylor Townsend last night should draw more than a finger-wag or a routine fine. It should trigger a real response from tennis’s stewards—beginning with a significant U.S. Open penalty and, given Ostapenko’s behavioral patterns, a WTA suspension.

First, the facts. After Townsend beat the 2017 French Open champion 7–5, 6–1, the handshake rapidly morphed into a confrontation. Townsend says Ostapenko told her she had “no class” and “no education”—and, chillingly, to “see what happens when we get outside the U.S.” That’s not a heat-of-battle mutter under your breath; that’s targeted, personal, and public. Multiple outlets captured both the exchange and Townsend’s account immediately afterward. Social media, as expected, has been feasting all night

Because Townsend is a Black athlete, reporters rightly asked whether there were racial undertones—particularly given the long, ugly history of “uneducated” tropes used to diminish Black competitors. Townsend, with poise that frankly put the adults in the room to shame, declined to brand the comments explicitly racist while noting the very stereotypes those words have carried for generations. That’s a hard needle to thread, and she threaded it.

Ostapenko, for her part, tried to reframe the whole thing as a lecture on etiquette—no apology after a net-cord, warm-up habits she didn’t like, etc.—and later took to Instagram to deny any racial intent. But “you broke unwritten rules” is not a defense to “you insulted your opponent’s personhood.” You can be irked about customs; you can’t weaponize that irritation into personal degradation at the net.

Now, about those actual rules. The Grand Slam rulebook—the one that governs the U.S. Open—explicitly prohibits verbal abuse “at any time” toward an opponent or others within the tournament precincts, and authorizes fines up to $50,000 for each violation. That’s not theoretical; the event has already shown this week that it will levy meaningful penalties for on-court misbehavior. (Daniil Medvedev was just hit with a $42,500 bill for unsportsmanlike conduct and racket abuse, which is over one-third of his tournament winnings.) If the Open wants to show that words can be as corrosive to the sport as splintered graphite, it should move accordingly.

But this shouldn’t stop at Flushing Meadows. The WTA’s own Code of Conduct goes further, and it exists precisely for moments like this. The Code bars “verbal abuse” and, crucially, defines “Aggravated Behavior” to include either a single, particularly egregious incident injurious to the WTA or its tournaments or a pattern of conduct that, taken together, is collectively egregious. The penalties aren’t symbolic: a fine (up to the greater of $25,000 or a player’s prize money) and/or suspension from play for 21 days up to one year. The WTA also reserves the “sole authority” to declare a violation upon a formal, substantiated complaint. Translation: if the tour wants to act, it has the tools.

And the pattern? Ostapenko’s résumé of combustions is not a one-line CV. We’ve seen blow-ups at officials (remember the 2024 Australian swing warm-up rant at the chair umpire) and one of the nastiest Wimbledon spats in recent memory, when she and Ajla Tomljanovic traded accusations—“liar,” “no respect,” “worst player on tour”—after a medical time-out controversy. That’s a multi-year arc, not a one-off lapse.

Some will say: c’mon, it’s emotional sport—don’t criminalize passion. Agreed. Passion in this amazing sport (the world’s greatest sport, in my opinion) is the point. But there’s a bright line between playing with fire and burning the house down. Tennis has always asked its pros to hold two ideas at once: compete like a maniac and carry yourself like a pro. When players torch that second part—especially with demeaning, personal attacks—the damage outlives the highlight reel. It erodes the locker room, gives oxygen to the worst parts of fan culture, and tells kids watching at home that winning excuses everything.

Others will argue that Townsend didn’t call the comments racist, so what’s the problem? That’s precisely why the adults in charge need to lead. It shouldn’t fall on the target of an insult to litigate its cultural lineage in real time. The job here is narrower and simpler: enforce the rules, protect players, and set a standard that verbal abuse—whatever the abuser’s intent—has consequences.

What should those consequences be? Start with the U.S. Open applying the Grand Slam code’s verbal-abuse provision—real dollars, not couch-cushion money. Then the WTA should open an Aggravated Behavior review. This incident was public, direct, and demeaning; it also falls against a backdrop of prior high-profile blowups. Under the WTA’s own framework, that’s enough to consider a short suspension—measured in weeks, not months—to make clear that personal attacks are out of bounds. A suspension isn’t about vengeance; it’s about deterrence and dignity.

And while we’re here, let’s retire the etiquette smokescreen. If the sport wants to codify a net-cord apology, have at it—although good luck writing that into law without turning tennis into the Emotions Bureau. The better path is the one the rulebooks already paved: focus on conduct, not customs. You can be exuberant, curt, celebratory, even a little spicy. What you can’t be is personally abusive.

Tennis is booming with new voices and new audiences; the women’s game in particular has never been more global, more competitive, or more compelling. That’s exactly why leadership matters. The U.S. Open should show that its standards aren’t just for broken rackets. The WTA should show that patterns of disrespect have a shelf life. And the rest of us should take a cue from Taylor Townsend: play your heart out, answer loaded questions with grace, and let your game do most of the talking.

The message should be as crisp as a clean winner up the line: fines are the floor, not the ceiling—and for Ostapenko, this time, the ceiling needs to come down a bit.